Construction of Disputed Turkish Dam Continues

“These are live,” he said, as he toggled between images of men and machines swarming over a dozen different building sites of the Ilisu Dam project.

The feed goes to the prime minister’s office in Ankara, Mr. Dundar, general manager of the project, said last week. “The prime minister can watch every point of construction 24 hours a day, minute by minute, so he is informed of our progress at all times. He has set the target for completion for 2014, and we mean to make that date.”

About 1,450 workers are laboring around the clock to complete the Ilisu Dam, one of the most controversial public works projects in recent history, by the middle of next year. That would be exactly five years after European lenders pulled out of the €1.1 billion, or $1.5 billion, project in July 2009, citing concerns about environmental impact, resettlement policies and the destruction of cultural treasures. Undeterred, Ankara quickly raised domestic financing and resumed work in 2010.

“We have now completed 53 percent of the project, and we will complete the rest on time,” said Mr. Dundar, who is also regional director of the state hydraulic works. “We have no funding problems whatsoever, we work day and night, and all relevant agencies are in constant coordination.”

On the construction site, about 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, from the Syrian border and 70 kilometers from Iraq, the roar of machinery drowned out the rushing waters of the Tigris, which has been diverted from its natural bed to flow through three diversion tunnels and emerge roiling and foaming into a new concrete basin.

The surrounding mountain ridges bristled with military sentry posts and surveillance equipment guarding the construction site against the Kurdish rebels roaming the area.

Trucks and earth movers hauled loads of limestone, basalt and clay onto the rising body of the dam, which is to attain a height of 141 meters, or 460 feet, when complete. The crest of the dam will be 2.3 kilometers long, with a volume of 24 million cubic meters of earth and rock.

One-third of that is done, Mr. Dundar said, with the rest scheduled to be finished within the year. “Meanwhile, construction of the spillway and the power plant are going ahead according to plan,” he added.

If the project stays on track, the Ilisu Dam will begin to impound water next year. Filling the reservoir could take anywhere from 5 to 11 months, Mr. Dundar said, depending on the season in which it is begun. “We think the reservoir will be filled in 2015,” he added.

The project appeared to hit a snag last month when Turkey’s highest administrative court ruled that a decree issued by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last year to accelerate work on the dam was in part null and void.

The court declared invalid that part of the decree that declared all infrastructure projects connected to the dam to be exempt from environmental impact assessment requirements on the grounds that plans for the dam were drawn up before the relevant law came into effect in 1993. Opponents of the project were jubilant and staged a rally in Ankara, calling for the Ilisu construction site to be shut down.

Emre Baturay Altinok, the lawyer who lodged the complaint on behalf of environmentalists, said by telephone from Ankara this month: “It is unlawful to continue work on the project without environmental impact assessments. The construction site must be closed and sealed.”

Mr. Dundar disagreed with that interpretation of the ruling, which he said would not impede work on the dam.

“The ruling does not even remotely have anything to do with stopping the project,” he said. “It is merely about applying the environmental impact assessment regulations, which we are now doing anyway.”

The state hydraulic works authority has lodged an objection to the ruling, asking for clarification of certain terms, he said. “But in any case,” he added, “the final judgment will definitely not stop the project.”

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