The governmental mess about the Keratea Sanitary Landfill

Not even a month has passed since the meeting between Interior and Environment ministers, Ragousis and Birbili, with the mayor of Lavreotiki, and the knives are still out.

The governmental mess on the landfill issue, accounting for 3 intense months, and the yoghurt throwing at Pagalos (who’s in favor of the project) in Kalyvia, are the icing on the cake and render the need for a solution quite urgent.

«Either the MAT teams go or the project begins» says an executive from the constructing company, noting that the state has been reluctant so far on the issue of Keratea. «The ministers are fighting with each other» he says, describing the unflinching line of Ragousis as concerns the implementation of the regional design for garbage, the backtracking of Birbili, who’s been pressing for environmental solutions, and the Citizen Protection minister Christos Papoutsis, who wants to withdraw the MAT teams and seems to oppose any interfering plan.

As people who know the background story say, the Citizen Protection general secretary disappears when Ilias Liakopoulos, the general secretary of Decentralized Administration and a confidant of Ragousis, calls!

The co-ministers behave as if they haven’t realised the magnitude of the problem; with the landfill of Ano Liosia having three years of life left, and the waste management factories needing up to five years to be built, as a country we already have a 2-year deficit in waste management solutions.

It took three days in Grammatiko

The lack of pace and cooperation on the government’s part has been confirmed by the handling of the landfill at Grammatiko, where despite the problems of the early days, the reactions of the local society were bent very quickly. «Within 3 days Grammatiko was leveled, the trees were cut down and the project had started intensively. The residents had filed for security measures in the Kapandriti County Court, which is not empowered to adjudicate disputes between the state and the citizens. Then, there was a referral to the CoE and within a week the measures were dismissed. For the same case in Keratea, we have been stalling for 2 months.»

Despite the governmental efforts to relieve the tension by removing the MAT teams, the climate is once again ignited by the announcement of Liakopoulos as to passing to the municipality the cost of losing money from delays in the building of the landfill and the compensation of contractors by the sabotage. It was preceded by the burning of two J&P Avax machines by the citizens of Keratea, which showed that despite the good will actions by the municipality and the relevant ministries, the situation is still out of control.  

The damage must be paid for by those who cause it

«It seems that some people don’t want the MAT teams out of Keratea and seek to continue this guerilla war» came the rough answer from Liakopoulos. He is also accusing the municipality of continuing the tension in the area, warning that the government is preparing a legislation which will provide that in the case of a project downgrade (financed with 12 million by the Cohesion Fund), the total burden on the government due to sabotage, fiscal adjustment and any other costs that will arise, will be assigned to the municipality of Lavreotiki and withheld from the Main Independent Resources of 2011 and 2012.