Dirty waters reflect badly on us
The Kifissos River, a typical example of the way we abuse our natural environment, is a reflection of our own society. In other parts of the world, particularly Europe, the trend is to protect water resources and restore damaged rivers to their natural state, yet in Athens we have turned the Kifissos into a highway and a sewer. With very few exceptions, we have not protested. Our governments and their technical advisers were happy with a solution that killed two birds with one stone – saving them from having to expropriate land to construct the highway extension by carrying out a drainage plan typical of those carried out decades ago, inadequate for current needs. They are indifferent to the problems, such as stagnant water, caused by covering the river and deepening it. While the central government has now done its damage, local municipal councils have done their part with road projects and extensions to town plans and public organizations (with buildings and vehicle depots). Individuals have joined in, too, building factories and illegal buildings, and dumping waste. Two glimmers of light appeared in 1994 and 2002 when the state showed some interest in trying to reverse the decline, firstly by establishing protection zones and then by setting up a protection agency. Yet these have remained map exercises. The agency has never received a single euro in funding and the initiatives it has taken at the European Union have received no support. Dimitris Koutsoyiannis is an associate professor in the Water Resources Dep’t of the National Technical University of Athens’s Civil Engineering School.
