SEA ‘SNOT’ SCARE IS A WARNING
LAST week, a brownish substance floating at the Palm Beach in Gazimağusa caused “panic” on social media that Turkey’s ongoing sea “snot” problem had reached the shores of North Cyprus.
Thousands of cubic metres of marine mucilage in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul have been cleaned up by Turkey as part of the largest outbreak of the sludge on record.
“We were really happy to see that it wasn’t sea snot” Chamber of Environmental Engineers (ÇMO) head Nilden Bektaş Erhürman said after she visited the Palm Beach site with ÇMO members.
The Environment Protection Agency and Eastern Mediterranean University’s Dr Burak Ali Çiçek also made comments to the press stating that the muddy substance was not sea snot, but caused by “sand extraction” as witnessed by fishermen.
Sea snot “forms over a long period” of time, Mrs Erhürman said, but warned that “just because it didn’t happen [in the TRNC] doesn’t mean that it won’t happen”.
“We want this to be seen as a warning, because if tests were carried out in Girne around the [wastewater] purification area, the results would indicate that the water is dirty.
“We are sure of that, because [the purification point] it is overloaded . . . with dirty water, especially during the summer season when there is an increase in the population.
“The nitrogen and phosphorus found in untreated wastewater feeds
phytoplankton that release what is known as sea snot.
“Sometimes no chlorine is added to the water before it is pumped out. . . There is no reason for sea snot not to happen.
“Rising sea temperatures and pollution from untreated waste lead to the formation of sea snot.
“Do we have to experience an environmental disaster like Marmara in order to find a solution to our country’s wastewater problems?
“[While] we don’t think that we will turn into the Sea of Marmara . . . this should be a warning to regulate hotels, to establish a new purification point in Girne and to regularly test the waters and share the results with the public.”
A ÇMO statement said: “It is unacceptable for Girne, the centre of tourism, to discharge the wastewater collected by the sewage system in the Girne region into the sea without
sufficient treatment.”
The statement added that “the nitrogen and phosphorus ratio on our beaches, especially in Girne, are constantly increasing due to untreated and uncontrolled domestic wastewater discharges”.
The Biologists Association was another organisation to issue a warning about sea snot. They said that despite the “high water exchange rate in TRNC coasts, that are open to sea” unlike the Sea of Marmara “it will be inevitable for us to experience the fate of the Sea of Marmara if we continue to pour wastewater into the sea without treating it”.
To avoid such a scenario the Biologists Association said that wastewater treatment plants should be “implemented urgently” and that areas where large numbers of jelly fish are spotted due to an increase in water temperatures must be “evaluated in terms of sea snot risk”.