Kifissos River is polluting the Saronic Gulf
The waters of the Kifissos River that flows through Athens to the Saronic Gulf bring with them large quantities of chromium, nickel and iron, spreading them along the section of coast from the Faliron Delta to Perama. These toxic heavy metals have been found in concentrations far above the set limits and threaten the health of swimmers at the Votsalakia and Freattyda beaches in Piraeus. According to a postgraduate dissertation by chemical engineer Apostolos Moustakis at Piraeus University’s Shipping Studies Department, some sections of the river, particularly near the Aghias Annis bridge, have average levels of chromium that are 350 percent over the permissible limit. But scientists have found concentrations as high as 1,600 percent more than the limit. Change for worse At the river mouth chromium levels were 220 percent over the limit, while lead levels surpassed it by 120 percent and nickel by up to 50 percent. The survey, carried out in two phases (the first in 1999-2003 and the second in 2005 after the river was covered by a highway), shows that covering the river with asphalt and concrete did not protect the river, as authorities claimed it would. Instead, the construction has worsened it. Chromium levels have increased by 30 percent since the section of the road was covered. «Covering the Kifissos River has had the opposite effect to what was expected despite the deindustrialization of the southern districts and the removal of a large number of smaller factories,» said Moustakis. New problems «Covering the Kifissos to build the extension of the Athens-Thessaloniki highway appears to have created new problems. Factories that used to dispose of their waste in the river have continued to do so and to an even greater degree; there are no checks on them because of the difficulty of access to the area. That is clear from the large increases in the concentrations of chromium since 2004 compared to 1999-2003, both at the Aghias Annis bridge and at Neo Faliron,» he added. The presence of these heavy metals in the Kifissos is due to industrial waste from tanneries and perhaps paint and cement factories in the open section of the river, as well as illegally constructed waste disposal pipes in the southern section. Waste from the Kifissos River accounts for 62 percent of the pollution in the sea, compared to 38 percent from the waste treatment plant on the islet of Psyttaleia just off the coast at Perama. «The river can only be saved if there is a new policy to protect it and by extension the marine environment, and if all parameters are monitored,» said Vassilis Tselentis, an associate professor at Piraeus University’s Marine Science Laboratory. Not a drain «There needs to be an immediate change in the mentality that the Kifissos is nothing more than a drain; there has to be an immediate ban on channeling industrial waste into it, and continual policing of its course.»
