The relevant transport and infrastructure minister on Monday explained, during a television appearance, why certain major anti-flooding works in the Athens-Piraeus basin are delayed, claiming that a handful environmental organizations have filed lawsuits to protect an endangered fish species, which must first be decided in order for the projects to proceed.
The legal blockades will, by all accounts, be adjudicated in an accelerated manner upon reaching the Council of State (CoS), Greece’s highest administrative court, following a change in the judicial process since 2019.
According to Minister Nikos Tahiaos, the legal challenges revolve around concerns over the survivability of the endangered Marathon minnow (Pelasgus marathonicus), which scientific bibliography lists as inhabiting springs, swamps and canals in the Marathon plain, west of Athens proper. The fish was again detected in the Kifissos (Cephesus) drainage basin that covers a large portion of the Athens-Piraeus watershed roughly a decade ago, after being thought extinct from the specific body of water in the early 1970s. Another habitat listed in the bibliography for the species, known locally as the “Atticopsaro”, is the Sperchios River Delta along the eastern seaboard of south-central Greece.
In some respects, the legal challenges to protect the humble Marathon minnow are reminiscent of landmark 1970s and ’80s battle to protect the snail darter fish species in the United States, which at the time blocked the building of a dam in Tennessee.
Tahiaos said one major anti-flooding project that has been delayed is in the Mesogeia (Mesogaia) inland plain east of Athens, where the current Athens International Airport is located.
“At the Erasinos site, our (infrastructure) intervention has been blocked because a loan by the European Investment Bank has been frozen, due to complaints that the Marathon minnow is at risk, with a special study now required. A complaint has been filed by environmental organizations, at European Union level as well,” he said.
At the same time, the minister claimed that an environmental impact study had been previously submitted, one that deals with all issues at hand, as he said.
“There is an intense environmental activism that ultimately blocks projects. These interventions (infrastructure works) …will alter, to a certain extent, what we perceive as the natural landscape, but it’s towards the benefit of the citizens,” he concluded.
Both the central government in Greece and the Attica regional government – which includes all of the greater Athens-Piraeus region – were rudely “awakened” late last month by the deadly flooding that occurred in and around Valencia, Spain.
Greece suffered major and destructive flooding in the central Thessaly plain, the country’s “breadbasket”, in early September 2023 after record-breaking rainfall, albeit without the scores of victims recorded in Spain.
