Court halts the execution of land reclamation project in Turkey’s Black Sea province

* Photos: ORÇEV

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The Ordu 1st Administrative Court has halted the execution of the Ordu Metropolitan Municipality's "Coastal Reclamation and Land Fill for Recreational Purposes" project, which has been partially completed and is planned to be constructed in the neighborhoods of Taşbaşı, Düz, Şarkiye, Bahçelievler, Akyazı and Durugöl in Altınordu district.

The ruling of the administrative court has indicated that the project will cause environmental and economic damages and its execution will lead to irreversible damages, unanimously ruling that "the execution shall be halted until the end of the trial without any legal remedies available."

The court has noted that the positive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report granted by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change "does not have adequate qualities to make a scientific or technical assessment." According to the ruling, the EIA report "does not have coherence, does not offer a sufficient database to define positive or negative impacts, does not assess the risks related to urban culture or pedestrian circulation within the area and is not valid in terms of geological engineering and urban planning without relating it to the city much..."

Statement by the association

The Ordu Environment Association (ORÇEV), which took legal action against the project, has released a statement on behalf of its Executive Board and announced that the administrative court ruling has been delivered to the Ordu Metropolitan Municipality as well.

It has raised concerns that works and reclamation efforts on the coasts of Civil and Melet rivers are still ongoing: "With this ruling, works must halt; otherwise, they will commit a crime when the court ruling is not abided by. We will follow it up closely so that the ruling will be put into force."

Land reclamation projects by Ordu Municipality

A year after 2014, when Ordu became a metropolitan municipality, the Ordu Metropolitan Municipality began filling the coasts, starting from the Altınordu Dock. The then municipality administration was fined 85,000 Turkish Lira (TRY) by the Ordu Environment and Urbanization Provincial Directorate on the grounds that it had not received an EIA report.

In the meantime, the ORÇEV has filed a total of seven lawsuits against the municipality so far, indicating that land reclamation efforts on the coast are against the law. The final rulings have been handed down in three of these lawsuits. While two have ended in favor of environmentalists, one ruling has been taken to the upper court as the municipality appealed against the local court ruling in favor of the environmentalists.

Amid the ongoing lawsuit against the "Coastal Reclamation and Land Fill for Recreational Purposes" project covering the Pier (Dock) and the Melet River, four expert examinations were held and all expert reports were in favor of the ORÇEV. However, despite all finalized and ongoing legal proceedings, the Ordu Metropolitan Municipality has kept on building breakwater and fishing ports towards the eastern end of the Melet River.

Ordu Metropolitan Municipality was also planning to fill the sandbank from the eastern side of Melet River to Turnasuyu River and to build a bicycle trail, fair and recreational site. Perşembe, Efirli, Gülyalı and Fatsa were also among its targeted project sites. ORÇEV and environmental activists have taken legal action against these projects as well. (TP/SD)