Thermal power plant in Soma sealed

ISTANBUL

The thermal power plant in the Soma district of Manisa province was sealed at midnight on Jan. 1 due to the failure to install filters on the chimneys despite the given one-month period deadline, Demirören News Agency reported on Jan. 1.

Turkey has started taking legal action against thermal power plants that do not comply with the environmental legislation in the country.

The authorities gave a period of one month to install filters on three chimneys in the thermal power plant in Soma. The period expired on Jan.1, but no filters were installed in the chimneys. The teams, accompanied by police, acted at midnight, and they went to the Soma Thermal Power Station in the first minutes of the new year and sealed the site.

The thermal power plant in the Soma had six units and 165-megawatt power, which had in each of the one steam turbine generator, one boiler, one condenser, one cooling tower. The power plants caused air pollution, said the local people, and they welcomed the decision to veto the delay for installing filters.

The authorities also determined that the chimneys were not installed filters in the given time in thermal power plants in Seyitömer and Tavşanlı districts of Kütahya provinces.

The teams of Kütahya Gendarmerie Command sealed the thermal power plants on Jan. 1 and stopped their activities.

The Turkish Parliament on Nov. 21 passed a motion that postponed the installation of filters in 15 thermal plants for two-and-a-half years. Before the motion, the thermal plants had a deadline to install filters until Dec. 1. It passed in parliament with the majority of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) votes.

The motion had drawn public anger due to concerns over air pollution and severe health problems.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Dec. 2 vetoed the law, the spokesperson for the AKP announced.