biz KİMİZ?kalkan&KAŞköylerimizne YAPIYORUZ?

• Anasayfa
• KALKAN HABERLERİ
• KAŞ HABERLERİ
• KÖYLERİMİZDEN HABER
• TOPLUMSAL YAŞAM
• SPOR & SAĞLIK
• FORUM & SÖYLEŞİ
• OKURLARIMIZDAN
• KÜLTÜR & SANAT
• KİTAPLARIMIZ
• nE AyAk?...

HABER ARA

-- Tüm Kategoriler -- KALKAN HABERLERİ KAŞ HABERLERİ KÖYLERİMİZDEN HABER TOPLUMSAL YAŞAM SPOR & SAĞLIK FORUM & SÖYLEŞİ OKURLARIMIZDAN KÜLTÜR & SANAT KİTAPLARIMIZ nE AyAk?... Gelişmiş Arama

THE FUTURE OF KALKAN

 

Prof. Dr. Derin Orhon*

 

This summer I was invited to Kalkan by Önder Elitez, a dear friend from 50 years back, at Erenköy. A shame to admit, this was my first visit to Kalkan. This is a problem for so many of us who get stuck to a summer house somewhere in the south, with no chance to enywhere else in Turkey, dring sommer vacations. At first glance, I was fascinated by the natural splendor of Kalkan, a small beautiful bay like a sparkling pearl with a cristal clear water. The quality of the sea water is so amazingly high that I could see the bottom through at least 10 meters, like the good old times at Suadiye and Erenköy in the 50s and 60s. This is probably due to a number of fresh water springs inside the sea along the shore, another unique gift of nature to this town.

 

At Kalkan, my wife and I were hosted by Selma and Önder, at their place “Türk Evi – Eski Ev”, a  beautiful boutique hotel, very centrally located in the town, decorated as an authentic old Turkish house as the name implies. I recommend to everyone visiting Kalkan to see the place, or better, to stay there. Both Selma an Önder have developed themselves as gourmet cooks and each night a different special menu is offered to the guests. After all these years of intense affinity for fine food, I should admid I have learned a great deal just watching them cooking. Try for example in a hot summer night, diluted Rakı chilled in the freeze for an hour, with no ice in it of course...

 

My trip to Kalkan was not all for pleasure. My program involved a meeting with members of Kalkan Association.  There, I had the chance to meet with a group of influencial and proactive poeple, quite aware of the problems facing Kalkan, with serious concern for environmental issues and much willing to act for improvements.

 

As an environmentalist, it gives me pain to note that everywhere we see natural beauties in Turkey, we also see severe environmental problems. It is as though the prime concern of the local administrations is to do – or not to do – the most they can to the extent of their inability, for the deterioration of the beauties offered by nature. Unfortunately, Kalkan is no exception...

 

Looking back at the town from the seashore gives the panorama of an intense disorder in landuse and a chaotic development of housing blocks with no touch of scientific urban planning, no concern for green, taste and harmony. Unfortunately, this appears to be the fate of so many beautiful resort towns along the Mediterratean cost – or anywhere else - where all decision making for urban planning is left to the mercy of the local administration; and there seems to be no mercy where there is quick profit. Luckily, Kalkan  does not seem to have reach the point of no return, yet, and something can still be done to stop the invasion of cheap housing, an important task for Kalkanites for the future of Kalkan.

 

What is much more important is the issue of sewage collection and disposal, beacuse the future of the quality of sea water in the bay, still sparkling clean, so much depends on it. Presently, the town is still served by septic tanks, presumably all watertight, with no seepage. Poeple residing at Kalkan or benefiting from Kalkan should understand that, first of all, there is no septic tank with no seepage and sewage infiltrates to the groundwater and to the sea. This is  as suitable as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day and still claim there is no harm done. Secondly, septic tanks are not fit and premissible for urban areas as an acceptable sewage disposal method, but only in rural areas under certain conditions. Statements like “ we have no sewage problems because we have septic tanks...” can only indicate sheer ignorance.   Therefore, all day long you can see  a whole army of suction trucks circling around the town in an ever-ending task of emptying the overloaded tanks and later disposing them, untreted of course in remote areas. If you can see the trucks, you can always sense them  by the characteristic odor of half purtefied sewage. The resulting effect is that there is a continuous could of very aggresive mosquitos working day and night around the town.

 

What is more surprising about sewage disposal, perhaps worthy of being quoted in the Guiness Book of Records is the fact that Kalkan has a complete sewerage system so far unused. The bad part of the story is that this system, despite all the expense, is bound to remain unused if the vision and the mentality of the local administration doesn suddenly change. As you may visualize,  Kalkan is constructed falks of hills surronding the bay.  The sewerage system  is designed tocollect sewage all the way downhill, but to pump it back uphill again, by means of more than a dozen pumping stations to the main collector on the main road above the town; collector continues  for about 4.5 kilometers and ends ina biological treatment system, designd for a capacity approximately five times the population of Kalkan. The treatment system is of course empty, rusting while waiting for some sewage to be treated.

 

This engineering monstrosity is perhaps uniques in the world, still conceived and funded for construction. What is even worse is that the system is so expensive that Kalkan can never afford to operate it. Moreover, the town has no technical manpower to even operate one of the pumping stations.

 

The solution... is simple and obvious: Operate the existing sewerage downhill by gravity to a new location along the bay upto the abandoned rock mine, move the existing biological treatment to this new site, implement advanced treatment and discharge fully treated wastewater far away from the shore through marine outfalls, or better recycle and reuse treated effluent for irrigation preferentially during summer time when wtare supply becomes a problem. A simple and effective system that could be implemented  based  a serious study and for which the required financement could be easily adjusted.

 

Will this come true?....  very doubtful: In my opinion, the major difference between Turkey and developed countries is their strong demand and our indifference for reliable knowledge. During my stay at Kalkan, Önder and I vsisted the mayor’s office.  The major was out of town. We had a chance to chat about these issues with the technical staff at the office.  I left my visiting cart for the major.  This was a genuine gesture of the mighty Istanbul Technical University, with all the expertise and experience on the subject, offering its support for the solution of Kalkan’s environmental problems, at no charge.. I am still waiting for the mayor’s call... Please note that I still maintain my sincere hope for such calls to come, some day in the bright future of a much more developed Turkey.

 

Dear friends, it was a sincere pleasure to contemplate Kalkan and to meet with you. I strongly hope that this delight will continue, always for the better...

 

* Prof. Orhon is a faculty member at the Environmental Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University. He is the recipient of the TUBİTAK science award in 1998 and a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences. Currentl, he serves as Dean of the Faculty of Civil Enginering at ITU.

 

ANKET

Tüm Anketler