An example not to be followed
Experts say we should be forewarned. The risk that the Aegean will have the same fate as the Adriatic, where swimming is banned on many beaches, hence the hordes of Italians on our own beaches, might not yet be visible, but the fact that the Aegean is enclosed should rule out any complacency. According to Giorgos Chronis, head of the Hellenic Center for Marine Research, the biggest threat is from coastal industries. «Apart from the Thermaic Gulf, into which both the Aliakmonas and Axios rivers flow, bearing industrial waste, and the Gulf of Elefsina where there is a large concentration of industries, in Greece we are not facing the risk of the kind of pollution seen in the Adriatic,» he explained. The River Pado pours about 100,000 tons of inorganic nitrate and about 6,000 tons of inorganic phosphates into the Adriatic every year, causing eutrophication. «On the coasts of the Adriatic, red tides are common, indicating the presence of toxic phytoplankton. In Greece, eutrophication is only present in the Thermaic and Saronic gulfs,» said Chronis. «Waters are renewed relatively often but the archipelagos is an enclosed sea, like the Adriatic, and it is easy for garbage to float southward. We are clearly better off than the Adriatic, but we need to be careful.»
