Dam Project Threatens to Submerge Thousands of Years of Turkish History | Hacker News Reader

Dam Project Threatens to Submerge Thousands of Years of Turkish History

nytimes.com

42 pointskafkaesq18 comments

These people can't win. They try to remove the reliance upon oil and coal, and add surer supplies of water for their populace, and still people find reasons to criticize. As opposed to pumping more carbon into the atmosphere, thanks, I'll take the dam. Infrastructure to serve the living is far more useful than infrastructure to observe the dead.

Environmentally, dams are hardly harmless. Just the opposite: they tend to have devastating consequences for the ecosystems they withhold water from downriver. Sure, they don't pump out carbon dioxide, but they cause lots of local damage.

I spent a few hours in Hasankeyf in 1999, on a tour to view a total solar eclipse. The buses parked on the Tigris shore and we all climbed up through some of the cave passages and houses. Here are some pics[1]. Certainly the town is a hugely impressive historic site. However the population is small and poor, so probably has little political clout.

[1] https://cortesi.smugmug.com/Solar-Eclipses/1999-Turkey-Hasan...

The story is very important and thanks to NY Times for covering it. However, calling it "Turkish" history is a few thousand years short.

Yes; about 11 of them, according to the article itself. Though I assume they meant "Turkish" as in belonging to the land, Turkey, not the nation.

12,000 years... Older than our planet, according to Young Earth creationism.

Anatolian history would have been far more accurate.

Yes, not even 1000 years since the Battle of Manzikert (1071):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manzikert

Are dam projects ever a good idea? I'm not being flip or sarcastic.

When I think of dams, I think of catastrophic failure which almost always ends in thousands of deaths. I think of how quickly untended dams will fail. I think of what kind of target a dam makes. I think of flooding and burying wilderness and wildlife and even towns like this.

I also think of hydro-electric power and water availability... but aren't there other ways to tackle those problems?

Are dams ever a good idea?

I can see a point to what you are saying. Dams can result in 1000s of deaths, but they already help millions to survive.

>>Are dams ever a good idea?

Yes, I guess, without dams the developed nations would not have been so developed either in terms of technology and even sociology. Without dams there won't be cities, without big cities there won't be mixing of different strata/groups of society.

So, when I think of dams I think of the immense value they provide to humans and their progress. It's difficult to get rid of dams. What we need is a lot better technology to ensure their reliability and robustness.

Another reason why we need dams more is: the sheer population increase is putting a hell lot of pressure on natural resources (including water, of course) these days as compared to 19th century. So we must address this issue also.

Also, the increasing consumerism should be restricted/reduced. The mindless consumerism is also adding to this pressure.

To take issue with your later points: a lot of resource pressure is due to humans being to stupid to not throw away their resources. Take California for instance. They have two really big environmental issues: drought and fires. LA purposely diverted rain water to the sea [1]. This meant they didn't resupply their ground water. Billions of gallons of water effectively lost over the years. The fires are due, in great part, to poor land management at a state and federal level [2]. Historically rational loggers cleaned out the forests. This prevented the type of fires we have now. It also prevented the landslides because the forest survived fires and kept the soil in place.

All this is not to say that we aren't putting pressure on the environment. It just goes to show that the pressure we're applying is a result of decades of arrogance and stupidity.

1 - https://www.marketplace.org/2016/01/08/world/down-drain 2 - http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/16396-bu...

It depends on your options and the impact of the dam. Historically speaking people were pretty hyped about them, but lately evidence shows they're far from environmentally friendly.

It's a lesser evil. Better a dam that, on catastrophic failure, will kill a few thousand people, or a nuclear reactor that will do that and irreparably pollute the earth for millions of years? (Sure, you can go solar, wind etc, but those are less efficient in terms of space required and on-demand reliability)

Besides, I know of several dams in Italy and only one failed with loss of life, afaik.

I think it depends on the useful life of the dam, mainly determined by silting, which in turn depends on geology, soils, vegetation, gradients, erosion, rainfall patterns, hence suspended load in tributaries, and the possibilities for sluicing out the silt.

For example, the Three Gorges dam seems to have a problem with silt accumulation that could cause a dramatic reduction in reservoir water capacity. I suspect many such dams will end up as concrete carcasses at the head of muddy lagoons - maybe not so bad for wildlife in the long run.

Hate to be that guy, but saying "thousands of years of Turkish history" is exactly as ignorant as saying "thousands of years of American history"

Turkey the modern political entity has control over these lands. Whatever political entity controlled them long ago is no longer relevant unless you want to get painstakingly academic.

The same goes for America where there are historical sites dating back thousands of years. America is the steward now, and it's part of the collective history of the country.

America is a group of continents that's been around for many thousands of years, Turkey is a country that hasn't.

Perhaps you meant USA. Calling people out as ignorant is always dicey IME.

Personally I don't mind the titling of historical situations using modern geographical designation as long as the head of the section tells me the historic context.

The thing is that history is not "Turkish" as such. But otherwise important issue.

I am sorry to see that resistance doesn't stop the dam project. It's a beautiful heritage but will be gone :(

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