Locals stage protests against planned thermal plant in Istanbul's Silivri

Local residents staged demonstrations against thermal power plant projects planned to be constructed in the Silivri district of Istanbul province and the Çerközköy district of Tekirdağ, Doğan News Agency has reported.

Villagers living near the planned construction areas carried banners reading, "The number of cancer patients will increase," "Our waters will get dirty and then drain away," and "Our children will be born disabled" at the June 4 protests.

"Insisting on construction of a thermal plant here amounts to nothing but perilous ignorance," Silivri Municipality Mayor Özcan Işıklar was quoted as saying during a press conference in the nearby Çayırdere neighborhood.

"The planned plant covers an area of 4,850 decares in Çerkezköy and 6,100 decares in Silvri. That means the thermal plant is planned to be constructed on 10,000 decares of land, bigger than the center of Silivri itself," Işıklar added. 

Saying the Çayırdere neighborhood was rich in forest and underground resources, he stressed that thermal plant construction would damage nature in the area "as much as if an atomic bomb has been dropped."

"Çayırdere is the last place that should be chosen for a thermal plant construction … These lands are the most important site of underground water basis in the Thrace region, the most important water basin in the 300 km area between Istanbul and Lüleburgaz," Işıklar said, stressing that the planned coal-fired thermal power plant will pollute the water resources.

The Silivri district produces its own energy needed for the cultivation of land from solar and wind power, the mayor said, adding that research showed the district had "richness to last forever" in terms of energy production. 

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