Istanbul Cleanup Campaign Launched : Turks Begin Polishing the Golden Horn

“I used to fish and swim in these waters when I was young and even the Sultan in his pleasure boat toured here,” said Celal Bektas, 84, pointing to the Golden Horn, a Bosphorus inlet in the heart of Istanbul.

The water there is dark brown, thick and reeking of sewage and pollutants from unchecked discharge of industrial and household waste.

Today, on both sides of the inlet--where Ottoman mansions and woods enchanted foreign visitors of the last century--a jumble of close-packed houses reaches to the shores.

More than 2,000 small workshops and factories, a power station dating back to the 1900s and a handful of shipyards have contributed to the deterioration of the once famed site.

In the summer months the Golden Horn’s odor is unbearable and the waters are so silted up that even rowing boats run aground where steam boats once docked.

But moves are afoot to restore its lost beauty.

“We decided to clean up the Golden Horn to make it match its ambitious name again and because of the threat it poses to public health,” Istanbul’s Mayor Bedrettin Dalan said.

On taking office a year ago Dalan formulated a plan to stop the pollution and clear shanty housing and industry. Opponents said he was taking on too much without the necessary funds.

“We found a cheap formula to clean up the Golden Horn in connection with an existing plan for a sewage collecting system for the area,” Dalan said.

It involves collecting waste water from about 1.6 million people in the area in two sewer pipes running along the banks of the inlet, instead of discharging it into the Golden Horn.

“These pipes, over 2.5 yards across, will also be used to take in the waters of the Golden Horn, and these will be pumped into the underwater currents of the Bosphorous bound for the Black Sea,” Dalan said.

He hopes this will end the stagnation of the Golden Horn. Two rivers that flow into it produce very little current, and one of them has been dammed to provide the city with water.

So confident is he that he pledged on taking office to turn the Golden Horn’s brown waters to a blue to match his own eyes.

A contract for half the project--construction of pipes on the south of the inlet--was awarded to a Turkish company in early 1984 for $12 million.

“This is expected to be finished in 27 months and the system on the other side will need at least 30 months from now. By the end of 1987 the system will be ready and three months later I think the Golden Horn will be clean,” Dalan said.

His case is supported by research on pollution of the Golden Horn by the Izmir University research vessel Piri Reis.

“We also want to stop the scenic pollution by demolishing the buildings. Since their foundations are not on solid ground they are a menace to the lives of the people living in them anyway,” Dalan said.

“We want to make parks and sports facilities on the shores of the Golden Horn and to convert the place into a recreation area,” the mayor said.