Coal, ash, and other tales

Abstract

Situated 50 kilometers north of Turkey's third-largest city, Izmir, Aliağa is home to shipbreaking and smelting facilities, oil refineries and massive coal-fired power plants. Aliağa Bay-located on the Aegean coast, with abundant scenic landscapes, pristine waters, and archaeologically important sites-was initially designated as a heavy industrial development zone by the 1961 Constitution. This was followed by the establishment of state-owned heavy industries, particularly during the 1980s; namely, PETKİM (petrochemicals) and TÜPRAŞ (oil refinery), despite the potential to develop tourism in the region. Small and medium-scale industries, such as shipbreaking, iron-steel smelting, and cement manufacturing flourished around these two large state-owned facilities, complementing them and serving the domestic and international strategic interests of Turkish governments and industrial groups. Industrial clustering around iron, steel, and cement was later supplemented with fossil fuel-based energy production facilities. Accompanying the years of state-led industrialization, a strong working class grew alongside the facilities in the region. The lack of cumulative impact studies coupled with a diverse set of state-led polluting investments was influential in turning Aliağa and its environs into an "ecological sacrifice zone" (Lerner, 2010). Today, approximately 36 percent of Turkey's crude oil is processed in Aliağa, and ambient levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are four to 20 times higher than suburban locations in the Izmir metropolitan area (Çetin et al., 2003). Cancer risk is high in the region due to these pollutants, at four times the levels considered acceptable by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Civan et al., 2015). The Aliağa region has a tumultuous history of social struggles stretching over the past 40 years, with the rise and demise of working-class action against largescale privatizations, as well as a fierce environmental movement propelled by the local community in tandem with local authorities and national/international networks. One climactic point was the 50,000-strong human chain in Aliağa on May 6, 1990, to protest the planned imported coal-fired power plant. On May 15, 2016, some 26 years later after this fateful campaign, Aliağa became home to a second mass mobilization against coal-fired power plants and coal ash dumpsites. However, this time the framing, repertoire of contention, political context, and

Defending Nature

“…Thus, Turkey's post-1980s atmosphere enabled people to come together to expand their personal and political freedoms through environmental activism (Turhan, Aydın, and Özkaynak 2019). In this context, Adaman, Arsel, and Akbulut (2015) demonstrate the importance of local differences of place in the creation of an environmental movement through the concept of environmentalism of the malcontent.…”