İZMİR - The Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change has issued 175 "EIA not required" decisions in the last 3 months for quarries that cause as much damage to ecology as cyanide gold mines.
Behind cyanide gold, silver and copper mines, quarries cause at least as much damage to nature. For these quarries, which are opened to extract stones such as marble, rock, clay, granite, limestone, etc., forests, agricultural lands or areas close to residential areas are generally chosen. Blasting in these quarries, all of which are operated as open mining, disrupts underground fracture systems, causing waterways to change and water to pass deeper into the ground. Due to the complete scraping of the vegetation cover, the habitat is fragmented, biodiversity is reduced, soil structure deteriorates, and the risk of erosion and landslides increases.
The quarries that destroy streams and fragment forests, as we can see most clearly in the Eşkencedere Valley in Rize İkizdere, make the region uninhabitable due to noise and dust pollution. While attention is drawn to cyanide gold mining, quarries, which show a great increase behind, are operating in almost every neighbourhood. With the increase in these quarries, social problems such as threats to health and safety, prevention of farming, prevention of free movement of animals, displacement of communities, decrease in agricultural productivity, and damage to cultural sites are also experienced. Dust from the quarries settles on trees in the forests, peppers and tomatoes in the fields, making agricultural production impossible, while citizens living in the immediate vicinity cannot even open their windows in the summer months.
1 IN 3 IS A STATE INSTITUTION
According to data on the website of the Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, 175 quarries received "Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) not required" decisions between 1 October and 24 December. Of these decisions, 53 were for quarries owned by state institutions such as State Hydraulic Works (DSI), Highways, Investment Monitoring and Coordination Directorate and Special Provincial Administration. The highest number of decisions was made for Hatay, which was hit by an earthquake on 6 February 2023 and turned the entire city into a construction site. EIA was not required for the opening of 6 quarries in different districts of the city where debris removal, new constructions and intense air pollution were experienced.