Half measures produce half results, say residents of Kolymbari who are asking for the construction of four more breakwaters to be completed to counter the erosion on their beach. The three breakwaters which have been completed have shown how much they can contribute to restoring the beachfront over a long distance.
Haniotika Nea interviewed a number of local residents on the section where a 75-metre wide beach has formed, where up to 2020 there had only been the boulders placed in 2006 to prevent the destruction of waterfront properties by the waves. They were: Andreas Tzeranis, proprietor of the Mylos Cafe on Kolymbari harbour; Stavros Maninakis, owner of the auto body shop next to the Kolymbari post office and President of the Association of Local Business Owners; former mayor of Kolymbari Manolis Rosmaris; and President of the Kolymbari Local Council Giannis Vavourakis.
They seemed completely happy with the work which was carried out on the basis of a study by the National (Metsovian} Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and Professor of Coastal Engineering and Port Works Konstantinos Moutzouris. Now for the residents the problem is not erosion but the accumulation of sand, since before long, they say, the beach will extend as far as the breakwaters .
“If four more breakwaters are constructed they will stop the erosion to the east and will halt the rapid expansion of the beach inside the breakwaters and the silting up of the harbour,” Stavros Maninakis believes. For his part Manolis Rosmaris, who has been following the work for years, emphasises that “At the moment we have a marvellous result and everyone is proud of the beach! The businesses are developing and where we did not have a beach we now have the phenomenon of sand accumulation, which risks annulling all the works which have taken place. The solution is to immediately proceed with four more breakwaters as envisaged by the plan of the National Technical University, which was developed with simulations in its laboratories. It will also protect the beach to the east of the built-up area and will reduce the width to a more natural size in front of the buildings.”
“Isn’t the site of the rocks in the sea unaesthetic?” Haniotika Nea asked their interviewees. “No” answered Mr Maninakis, adding “But if somebody doesn’t like them they can’t say that they’re not protecting the beach.” An alternative technique was the “sausages” – bags full of sand which were thrown out by the sea, he continued. “They came and put sand in plastic sacks of 5 metres diameter. Six divers worked for a week and at the first bad weather they were thrown back onto the beach. So there is no other solution apart from the breakwaters. The four additional ones were reduced to two by the Environment Ministry for reasons of cost, and the other two were blocked by [the Sea Turtle Protection Organisation] Archelon.”
For Mr Rosmaris there is no other solution to the problem, since as he says “Any other solution abolishes a safe and certain solution which was carried out by a reliable national organisation, the NTUA, and indeed under the supervision and control of the Environment Ministry! Any other idea or proposal not only abolishes the existing works but also delays blocking the phenomenon of sand accumulation and accelerates erosion more to the east.”
The newspaper also put forward the suggestion of constructing reefs only reaching surface level – a more moderate construction so as not to create an aesthetic problem – to which the former mayor replied: “Mr Moutzouris’s plan also defined the width and height of the breakwaters. He was asked then if it was possible to make them lower and what he said was: ‘We are on the north side [of the island]. The waves are so strong that their energy would not be checked in this way. With the breakwaters the waves are reduced by 70%, but if we reduce the height it would be as if they didn’t exist.’ Therefore it is quite clear that there is no other solution.”
About the sea turtles
Haniotika Nea asked the interviewees about the objections being put forward by environmentalists, that the breakwaters would among other things block access to the beach for sea turtles at the time of egg-laying. “On the beach beside the harbour in front of the settlement of Kolymbari there were never turtle nests. This year there were dozens, so that objection is unsound,” Mr Rosmaris said and Mr Maninakis added: “From the Haniotakis hotel as far as the harbour there were never caretta caretta, because there were very many stones and pebbles and the turtles weren’t going to move the stones in order to dig.
“The Archelon Association has recognised the attempts we have made to protect the turtles and how much we have helped, so we would be the last to want to harm the turtles. But they say lots of unfounded things, for example that birds of prey will nest on the breakwaters and prevent any baby turtles getting into the sea. In all these years we have never seen anything like that. Those things don’t hold up.”
Andreas Tzeranis spoke rather of the need to protect humans: “With the breakwaters the sea is closed off, it becomes a swimming pool, and we don’t have cases of drowning. We want the project for the protection of Kolymbari beach to be completed and subsequently for the erosion study to proceed for the rest of the bay.” Giannis Vavourakis recalled that the original plan as devised by Professor Mountzouris was only partially completed, and that is why they still have these problems.
The Chania Port Authority
Construction of another four breakwaters has already been planned by the Chania Port Authority, which has carried out a series of studies to submit them to the Environment Ministry for the necessary approvals. For the President of the Port Authority Dimitris Virirakis, it is quite clear that the breakwaters must be installed for the further protection of the beach.
“For the first study of Kolymbari harbour, modelling was carried out in the NTUA laboratory with 3, 4 and 7 breakwaters, and the aim was to have 7. Because of the objections posed at the time by the Archelon Association the solution with the three breakwaters was decided on, with further action to be determined by the results after their construction.
“Because a special ecological study is needed for the turtles, we did two studies. The one with NECCA costing €130,000, which Archelon participated in and was presented to us 2-3 years ago, concluded that there was no problem for the turtles, or for the egg-laying, from the construction of the breakwaters. We also did another study with Professor Drossos Koutsoubas of the Aegean University (Department of Oceanography and Marine Biosciences), who told us that not only is there not a problem but the population of turtles is gradually increasing. We will submit these studies to the Environment Ministry for them to approve the construction of another five [sic] breakwaters,” Mr Virirakis said.
Each breakwater is expected to cost more than €750,000 – not a prohibitive sum. According to the President of the Chania Harbour Board “the work on Kolymbari Harbour was carried out within schedule, was inspected by the EU and found to be faultless with a cost slightly above the budget.” Haniotika Nea asked whether instead of the breakwaters a reef could be constructed at surface level so as not to present the unaesthetic picture of boulders in the sea. However, “The reef requires another study and not only that but it is not so effective as a solution,” said Mr A Skoubakis, Head of the Technical Services of the Chania Harbour Board.
As regards the opinion of Professor Synolakis*, which he expressed in 2006 and which proposed sacks of sand – “sausages” – on the bottom of the sea, and increasing the sand on the beach with sand removed from deep water, Mr Virirakis commented that “These sandbags can be used in mild environments, for example by a hotel for the beach in front of it, but not for an extent of 500 metres on Kolymbari Beach! Because they break and move around and the depth is not suitable. This method is not indicated. The erosion issue is a worldwide one and in America, where Mr Synolakis is referring to, the law is different: there you can replace sand but here there is no such law.”
Mr Virirakis estimates that “If four new breakwaters are constructed it will improve the beach along a substantial distance from Kolymbari (around 500 metres) and what happens further on depends on the study being prepared for the Gulf of Chania by the Region of Crete, while at the same time a study is being prepared by the municipality of Chania for the beachfront at Agia Marina. So let’s see if they come to the same conclusions.”
(Haniotika Nea, 23/10/25)
*Kostas Synolakis, formerly Professor of Natural Disasters at the Technical University of Crete, now Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Southern California.