At the beginning of this century guidebooks could still recommend a ramble along the banks of the Kifissos River (of which Sophocles once sang, “its nomadic streams that run unthinned forever and never stay”). Athens, however, at that time was growing apace, and soon utilized nature’s own way of getting waste to the sea.
As in many other Athenian projects, grand public works, with respect to sewage in this case, have spilled off drawing boards for decades, which never reached practical realization. In spite of the city’s having nearly tripled in population in the third quarter of this century, the center for city sewage disposal lay conveniently close to Sophocles’ prophetically “unthinned streams” though for reasons the poet could never have suspected. The odors which emanated from the riverbed grew increasingly offensive over the years.
In May, 1977, the Mayor of Mosohato,accompanied by fifty local residents armed with picks and axes, broke open two large pipes that connected six tanneries and six tripe-processing factories to the river and stopped up the pipes with rubble and old newspapers.
In the same year, the city sewage problem entered what can only be called its explosive stage. A major sewage disposal plant had been constructed at Keratsini, a seaside suburb of Piraeus discreetly separated by a hill from Greece’s chief port. On the day of the inaugural all was in a festive mood. Bunting snapped in the air. Sanitation people were lined up in spotless garb. The crowds were cheerful. And sixty sewage trucks were smartly queued to deposit simultaneously their contents into the sixty freatia, or sewage manholes lying close to that great leaching field, the Saronic Gulf. At noon a motorcade of limousines arrived bearing dignitaries from the Ministry of Public Works. Fine words were aired; the constructors of the installations praised; ribbons were cut; and the first sewage tanker truck drove up to deposit its contents, then the second, then the third. When, however, the fourth was in the process of evacuating its load, the major pipe broke. It was sundered, as if by lightning, for not only were the contents of the fourth truck untidily spewn, but the substance of the first three erupted from the sea with superhuman force. Panic followed. The streets of Keratsini rang to the sound of scurrying feet and the screech of fleeing limousines. The remaining truck drivers were the first to recover their reason, and back they went to their familiar haunts near the groves of Academe.
It was then decided to construct a major havouza, or municipal cesspool, at Agios loannis Rendis with its sewage pits and manholes conveniently located right on the edge of the major Athens-Piraeus bypass. This was a temporary solution which, it was promised would give way to a more permanent one in May, 1980. The deadline, however, came and went and on the eve of World Environment Day last June, local residents and their children led by actress and MP Melina (“Never on Sunday”) Mercouri decided to prevent the trucks from using the sewage pits. A scuffle with the police ensued in which Ms Mercouri was allegedly injured.
The Rendis havouza however, remained closed, and to insure this, the Mayor moved his office to the site, and invited residents to enjoy a festival of cultural events there. This closure brought things to an understandable state of urban emergency when it is realized that eighty percent of Attica and much of Athens still have no central sewage system and individual cesspools have to be emptied by truck. By the tenth of June, 207 sewage tankers were lined up before the once disused havouza at Schisto, a desolate and rarely frequented area of Attica northwest of the city. The President of the Union of Sewage Disposal Trucks at this point warned officials that major delays were damaging the vehicles’ shock absorbers and suspensions and that in the heat there was danger of explosion.
As an emergency measure the Ministry of Public Works decided to open shafts at six or eight points in various parts of Athens which would connect directly with the city’s existing sewage system.
On Saturday evening, June 14, strollers along the Kifissia Road in Maroussi were attracted by the sound of clandestine digging in the groves near the tall, still uncompleted, OTE building. Mr. Lekkas, Mayor of Maroussi, was alerted and five thousand residents gathered at the site the following morning. A crew employed by the Ministry of Public Works was discovered opening a twenty-five meter sewage pit. The Mayor asked the crew leader to present a He was asked to leave and refused. The threat of violence drew an even greater crowd and MAT, or units of the riot squad, were called in. The church bells of Maroussi began to toll, barricades were erected and a confrontation continued until afternoon. The gathering was declared illegal, and officials from the Ministry were rushed up to negotiate. The populace, however, remained unconvinced until it was agreed that the sewage project be postponed.
In this state of emergency, however, it was decided that the project had to continue and on Monday there was fresh violence in which several were injured and seven people arrested. The Kifissia Road was blocked and there was a threat to blow up a petrol station. Early the following morning, the police were attacked by 15 youths, allegedly from other communities, with sticks, rocks and Molotov cocktails. MAT retaliated with tear gas.
On Tuesday, the nearby Pediatric Center complained that the presence of gas was preventing necessary operations and was hazardous to the health of incubator babies. An old men’s home in the vicinity also complained. As a result rubber tires were brought in and burned in order to counteract the effects of the gas.
Meanwhile, at a meeting of mayors and government officials, the whole matter was reviewed. During this session Mr. Lekkas was accused of exaggerating the situation and misleading the populace. It was reiterated that the project was only a pit connecting to a central system and not a municipal cesspool, that it was not a health hazard but chemically treated, and that it was meant to serve the people of Maroussi themselves.
And so another episode in the stirring history of the Athens sewage system came to a close. The Maroussi pit was in fact completed in the record time of four days when it was expected to take at least two weeks. It was done “the Syngrou way”, as one of the Ministry of Public Works officials said proudly, meaning working day and night. He was referring to the miraculous blooming of Syngrou Avenue on the eve of the arrival of EEC heads of state to witness Greece’s official signing into the Common Market.
It could also be said to have been done the Greek way, that is, by improvisation. Indeed, the opening up of these pits in various parts of Athens is itself only a temporary solution. The overall sewage problem will take four years to solve. Phase One, whatever that may be, will not be completed until December, 1981. If it isn’t, we are bound to have new eruptions.
Tourism Ambushed
EARLY in June, a group of eighty German tourists standing outside the Nafplion courthouse were enraged to hear that two of their compatriots, a married couple, had just been sentenced to a two-to-three year prison term for insulting public decency.
The Germans were members of a nudist organization who were staying at the Salandi Hotel near Ermioni which lies on the mainland opposite Hydra. A few days earlier a group of ten to fifteen outsiders had thrown stones at the nudists lying on the beach outside the hotel. A scuffle followed in which the hotel waiters became involved and resulted in the arrest of the German couple. The defendants appealed the case and were set free.
Five days later, on a Sunday, the guests at the Salandi Hotel were astonished to see a group of four hundred aged people led by priests approaching the hotel. They were singing “Hosanna, hosanna,”carrying placards exclaiming, “Get out of our land, you Sodomites” and cursing savagely.
While the clerical leaders, including Ierotheos, Metropolitan of Hydra, plus an interpreter were present-ing their ultimatum to the guests and the tourist agency leader in the hotel, the other protesters gathered at the nearby chapel of Agios Ioannis tou Karteri (Saint John-In-Ambush) singing psalms and imploring God to cleanse the beach of filth. The ultimatum made it clear that if the German hotel guests did not vacate the premises in twenty-four hours the churchmen could not vouch for their safety.
The tourists in consternation rushed to telephones and got in touch with their embassy in Athens and the press in West Germany. Meanwhile, the protesters, refreshed by prayer, took up loudspeakers and began shouting, “You nudists are all perverted pigs,” “You have turned our beaches into brothels,” and other expressions which would lose fervor in translation.
One elderly demonstrator had come from as far as Samos to join the crusade and, when asked what he thought the nudists were up to, he said “I don’t know, but I can well imagine.”
The following afternoon one hundred and eighty of the former Salandi guests were in flight to Yugoslavia where naturism is not considered a deviant form of social behavior. Another hundred were still packing their bags while the next tourist group of several hundred had cancelled, for the news story had been given huge publicity at home.
The National Tourist Organization was understandably concerned by the episode, given the drop in bookings this year. At this time officials are indifferent as to whether tourists are dressed or not, so long as they are carrying their billfolds.
A few days later Spyros Amourgis, General Secretary of EOT, regretting the incident, said that such fanaticism only represented a small minority and pointed out that other Greek tourist centers had offered to house the nudists. He added that the Government should examine the possibility of changing the law regarding public decency and adapt it to present conditions.
The Salandi Hotel should be a pleasantly tranquil place to spend the latter part of the summer. Those who choose to, however, are earnestly requested not to leave their swimsuits behind.
