Nikos Pelekoudas
▸On April 21, an information event was held by Network of Citizens for saving the stream of Picrodafniin Asyrmatou Park.
Key speakers were Rodoula Konstantinidou (geologist engineer, oceanographer and environmentalist) and Giorgos Balias (professor of environmental impacts and environmental protection from Harokopion University). The event was strengthened with its presence by the Anti-Capitalist Upheaval in Attica.
The event presented the impressive history of the encroachment operation of the Picrodafni stream whose starting point is the west of Ymittos, running through a series of regions of Attica (Byronas, Ilioupoli, Agios Dimitrios, Paleo Faliro, Alimos). The whole story begins already with the junta of the colonels and their original plan for the creation of Picrodafni Avenue. But even in the post-colonial period, the business of damming the stream and reducing its bed through the construction of buildings continued and continues.
Apart from the struggles of the 1980s and 1990s, where the Network began its activity, it is typical that, as mentioned, between 2004 and 2016, 145 hearings were held to save the stream, following appeals by the Citizens Network. And this element alone is indicative of the cross-party government crime of that period. From 2016 to 2020, the fight concerns the encroachment studies drawn up by the Douro staff, while from 2021 there is a new study, in the direction of demarcating the stream in such a way as to legalize the current encroachments. Apart from the apartment buildings that already exist, only Marina Alimos has encroached on 2/3 of the stream’s estuary in the area.
All encroachments that have been made and those that are planned are made on the grounds of flood control works! When the exact opposite is true. Any narrowing of the stream will exacerbate flooding events.
THE Anti-Capitalist Upheaval in Attica has been involved in related mobilizations in the past. They will be there to defend and expand the environmental rights of local residents, leveraging the elements of the Citizens Network.
2024-04-26 11:41:29