THE FIGHT OF A SMALL GREEK VILLAGE TO PRESERVE ITS QUALITY

Summary:

Greece is a country where the idea of processing waste is not yet fully developed in people’s mind, especially when we are talking of the populous inhabitants of the cities; it has already made quite a step in the mind and actions of the country’s landowners; but unfortunately, as far as the successive governments are concerned, there is a dramatic lack of will to solve the problem of solid wastes.

Overview on Greece and landfills:

As far as the Greek government’s policy is concerned, the agenda is the following: to try to justify the expense of the EEC subsidies – and attempt to obtain more – by showing a fictive progress in treating and recycling solid wastes while tampering with volumes and inflating numbers.

Let’s add an unfortunate lack of adaptation to the European directives. This inertia on the part of the Greek government results today in the adoption of measures already in general disuse or even forbidden nowadays by the EEC, such as landfills.

Greece is paying tremendous amounts in fines: 34,000.00 Euros per illegal landfill per day. There are approximately 400 landfills in the country today (they were more than 2000 before). This is of course shouldered by the common taxpayer.

As the waste is not sorted out from beginning, landfills fill in quickly and get saturated earlier than planned on paper. Major pollution in Greece and especially around Athens is already an established danger. Heavy metals pile up right now in the bed of the river Assopos, which pours freely, since the last 25 years, a concentration of chromes and pesticides, right into the Gulf of Evvia. In average, it has already exceeded the EEC tolerated threshold by 100.

At Phili, at Ano Liossia (the two main landfills for Athens), ground water and undersea pollution is such that epidemiological studies are top-secret. Hospital waste is mixed with other wastes all over Greece instead of being incinerated as the law states.

There is a complete lack of reliability in most recycling works in Greece: polluting recycling plants working without filters; treated mud at Psitallia without drying plants; deficiency of material or knowledge; and lack of competent staff.

Whatever is recycled (RDF, compost) is being refused by companies interested in buying it because the final product is not clean (due to lack of sorting out and presence of heavy metals). Those already recycled but dirty products are going back to Ano Liossia and Phili where they pile up. These two landfills actually receive waste from all over Greece on top of Athens’s. By closing 800 landfills, the government just meant to try and contain the amount of fines, not to resolve the waste problem by creating plants.

Case in point (and ongoing):

The Greek Government is proceeding now – as you read this - with an illegal program of complementary landfills for Athens at Grammatiko and Keratea. On the paper it seems that - supported with serious environmental studies - modern technologies and recycling plants will be implemented on these sites. All is up to date. The truth is, there is a unanimous lack of trust today from the population of Grammatiko and Keratea towards

the Greek Government’s plans. And they are right. These sites are in reality going to be dumping grounds, polluting the environment, a danger to public health, implemented with obsolete technology, with no serious survey.

This new landfill plan came to them like a fait accompli, with no preliminary discussion: not even with the local elected representatives. Furthermore, the deadline from the EEC to close all illegal landfills in Greece is already passed. It should have happened by the end of 2008 and we are talking there of one of the deadlines. 2006 and 2007 were also supposed to see the end of landfills as a solution. The Greek government asked for an extension to 2012. The EEC agreed on yet another deadline, July 16 2009. 4 years have already gone – shall we say – wasted?

Some years ago Mr. Economopoulos, of the University of Crete, was ordered a survey by the ministry of Environment (YPEHODE), via TEDKNA (Association of Attica Mayors, whose President is Mr. Kaloyeropoulos). It indicates seven important centers of recycling plants in different places of Greece that have no risk on people’s health. This survey has just been re-actualized but has always been rejected by the successive governments in place. They want to keep control on the waste business in Attica because it is lucrative, thanks also to the EEC subsidies. (See www.oxistoxyta.gr)

Grammatiko :

The village of Grammatiko is located at equal distance to two archaeological sites of some significance, Rhamnous and Amphiarion, and less than 6 miles away from the famous site of Marathon. The entire area had burned in the 80’ and was classified as green reforest zone protected by the constitution.

· It is now arbitrarily downgraded from this green status by the current government to “legalize” the landfill. As of today, however, the legal court judgment for the downgrade is still pending and the area still under the protection of the constitution. This makes illegal any work to prepare a landfill there. Yet since July 8^th, trucks are working illegally on a preserved area, protected by storm troopers.

· The landowners of the affected area have not as yet received the official announcement that their land is being turned into a landfill. They have received no deed of expropriation either, even though the EEC has already granted 800,000.00 Euros for that purpose. Yet since July 8^th, trucks are working illegally on private properties, protected by storm troopers.

· A professional geological study had been made in the past by the IGME (National Geological Institute of Greece) declaring the site incompatible for geological and seismic reasons. Polluted waters would run into the Evvia Gulf and the Marathon Lake, Athens’ water reservoir. The area is inadequate and the sea around Evvia and Marathon, fisheries, beaches, tourism and everything business and health related are therefore threatened by this plan. Yet as you are reading, these works have begun since July 8^th.

· Last but not least the chosen area for the landfill will be located at the exact same spot where 122 Cypriots died in the Helios Airways crash on August 14, 2005. A chapel has been erected and stands there today.

Deadlines from the EEC and surprising reaction:

Today, Greece might loose the funds granted by the EEC (for the tidy sum of 200 million of Euros). Brussels finally imposed yet another deadline for July 16, 2009. This raises the question of how many deadlines can you give a country and how can you pressure it further?

However, the only palpable result is not the one expected. The government decided to ignore the repeated court appeals from the inhabitants of Grammatiko and Keratea and forced through at the last minute with the landfill plan, using military and police forces against the population (2,500 inhabitants in the area) to let the first trucks pass on (Kathimerini, To Bima, Ta Nea… July 8, 2009). This reaction is not only out of proportion in the development of its strength against a small population, but also comes a week before the end of the EEC deadline, which might be seen as suspicious.

The forces of law and order (riot police and police in civilian clothes, the military police and the firefighters) came by air, sea and land, and confronted violently the frustrated inhabitants. The riot police did not hesitate to target a few elderly persons, who were beaten up in the middle of the fight. Mr Boussoloulas, an inhabitant of Grammatiko, is still hospitalized with very serious injuries and multiple fractures on the leg with the risk to losing it and being handicapped for life. Seven storm troopers fell upon him. During the confrontation, all the local elected representatives were arrested.

The Mayor of Grammatiko, Nicolas Koukis, was beaten up and fainted. He was later arrested at the hospital and was trialed almost straight away with a suspicious zeal and sternness, in a country not especially famous for the swiftness of its judicial system. He was finally released, with interdiction to leave the country and obligation to sign in every two months at the police station like a criminal. The five other people arrested for “criminal activities” were released on July 10^th with the same judgment. Their release was more of a political decision to calm down the population: elections are coming and all the newspapers covered the event and backed up the population.

Protagonists:

Two companies and two mayors’ associations are involved in this program and will benefit from it.

· ILEKTOR is owned by Mr. Bobolas. ILEKTOR participates in almost every single government’s invitation to tender and usually prevails, realizing most of public works and monopolizing the market. The company owns one of the most prominent television channels in Greece, called Mega Channel, politically oriented and influential.

· LAMBDA DEVELOPMENT is part of Mr. Latsis Group. Among others, Latsis Group owns EUROBANK.

Ilektor and Lambda Development will be the contractors and master-builders for the landfill in Grammatiko-Keratea. This will be financed by the EEC, which means big money, and as it happens alas too often in Greece, little will be seen on the site of Grammatiko, wherever else it will go.

But the most important is that no Greek company possesses the know-how to build those recycling or incinerating factories. They will need to make joint-ventures. The fact is that the Greek population has no confidence in the capacity of the government to control the quality of the work done. The government is not even willing to impose European

standards on Greek industrials. The fines are ridiculously low- thus encouraging the companies to continue as they have always done.

ESDKNA (Association of the Mayors of Athens and Suburbs), and TEDKNA (Association of the Mayors of Attica) are in charge of managing wastes.

Mr Hiotakis - president of the association ESKDNA and also the mayor of Kifissia,
Mr Kaklamanis, the mayor of Athens, and Mr Fassoulas, the mayor of Piraeus

( the 2 main contributors to the landfill in volume and weight, who do nothing as far as recycling is concerned)

and TEDKNA

force upon the government to apply the wrong solution of landfills at Grammatiko and in Keratea. The Mayor of Kifissia insists that “Athens is going to become Naples if this plan is not realized immediately” [sic]. Mr Hiotakis is contributing to that problem by accepting illegally thousands of tons of solid wastes from all over Greece, which are thrown at Ano Liossia and Phili, shortening thus the life expectancy of those landfills. This explains why he wants to open two more landfills in Grammatiko and in Keratea. The fact that Mr Hiotakis accepts wastes from other provinces than Attica was brought up at the National Assembly at the Commission of the Environmentas as being illegal. Its president is Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, M.P. It is interesting to know that he is the brother of Mrs. Bakoyianni-Kouvelou, Foreign Affairs, ex-mayor of Athens. Did he override in some way this illegality thus permitting Grammatiko to become a landfill?

Conclusion :

The Greek Government just made a convincing demonstration of its ability to act strongly and swiftly when needed. Wouldn’t it be wiser to put these qualities to use on making plans for really efficient and modern recycling plants everywhere in Greece? These plants exist everywhere in European countries nowadays.

We ask Brussels deciders:

to stop financing those deadly projects,
to put a program of checks and balance for the works done, since they help finance: where does the money go, how plants are built, what are the security measures, etc.
to dialogue with the local representatives (associations, the mayor and the village council…) and take into account the different complaints made at the EEC by the local population and not just listen to the government lies, in order

Not to waste European tax payers money plus Greek tax payers, and thus contribute in an off-hand manner to the aggravation of the local corruption. For example, how can they finance other landfills while imposing fines for them at the same time?
To help us protect the environment and people’s quality of life, organize more national parks.

These regions of Grammatiko and Keratea are the last green lungs around the ever-growing Athens. If Greeks cannot trust their own politicians, then let it be heard everywhere, to everyone who loves Greece, to all the defenders of wildlife, and to all who seek freedom of speech and reasonable ways to solve a conflict: we Greeks of a small unknown village, we appeal to you, to the whole world, to the power of mouth to ear. Help us put pressure on the leaders who go wasting our planet with short sighted programs to suit their own electoral/financial agendas!