VAN - Van Lake, which brought astronaut Kate Rubins the grand prize in NASA's "World Tournament" competition with its image taken from space, is in danger due to rubble, sewage and domestic waste.

 

The photograph taken from the space of Lake Van won the grand prize in the "World Tournament" online photo contest organized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

 

The world's largest soda lake Lake Van, which takes up an area of 3713 kilometers with a depth of 457 meters. Its also the largest lake in Turkey. According to a study conducted by 26 scientists in 2004, the lake, which has a history of 600,000 years, is home to an endemic fish species called pearl mullet and and home to hundreds of bird species. However, the lake faces a great danger due to the opening of wetlands to construction with domestic, industrial and biological wastes in recent years. For these reasons, some scientists says that the lake will dry up in 25 years.

 

The administration of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which won the Van Metropolitan Municipality in the latest local elections, decided to celebrate the dates of 17-24 June as the "Van Lake Basin Awareness Days" at the council meeting held with the participants, including representatives of the city's institutions and organizations. The HDP's administration also organized a workshop and decided to carry out work to legalize the "Van Lake Basin Protection Law" and to include the lake in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

 

THE LAKE IS FULL OF TRASH WITH THE APPOINTMENT OF THE TRUSTEE

 

However, with the appointment of a second trustee to the municipality, the work carried out by the HDP was interrupted and the lake was left to its fate. The coastline of the lake is full of trash with the appointment of the trustee. The lake shore surrounded by bottles, bags, bins, cans and broken glass, is also polluted by dirty water that is discharged into the lake without treatment. While the garbage, which also causes the spread of bad odors, is not cleaned, the rubble dumped by the municipalities, most of which are managed by the trustees, causes the lake to be polluted.

 

MA / Müjdat Can