The plan by the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO/ADMIE) to run an overhead power line from Chania to Damasta in Heraklion, erecting a total of 269 pylons across sensitive countryside, caused a storm of protest when it was first announced a year ago. Since then the Municipality of Apokoronas has led a movement against the plan, among other things commissioning research from the National Technical University of Crete (NTUA) to study the effects of the project in detail across the three Regional Units of Chania, Rethymnon and Heraklion. The initial findings of this study have now been published and an article by Haniotika Nea’s managing director Paraskevas Perakis, appearing both in the paper’s print edition and on its website, presents the details of the findings, as follows.
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Pylons over Apokoronas – the fight continues
Since we last reported on the matter in July, the battle against the installation of 269 electricity pylons carrying a 150 kVA transmission line from Chania to Damasta in Heraklion, traversing some of the most environmentally sensitive areas of the local countryside, has continued to be waged sporadically. Following the creation of a fighting committee – the “Apokoronas Initiative” – at the end of June by the cultural associations of the municipality of Apokoronas, a number of protest meetings have taken place. They have also taken aim at a parallel proposal to install six giant wind farms in different areas of the nomos of Chania with which, despite official disclaimers, the cable plan seems closely linked.
Continue readingA movement against “green” investments
Local attempts to block the proposed installation of high-tension overground cables and heavy-duty wind generators in the Regional Unit of Chania, in view of the damaging effects it is feared they will have on the countryside, are gathering force. As reported in Haniotika Nea, meeting on Saturday 29th June at the stone theatre in Macheri, Apokoronas, the Municipality’s cultural associations decided to create a “fighting committee” to organise demonstrations and awareness-raising activities, informing citizens of the severe consequences of these developments to the environment and to public health.
Continue readingTechnology meets tradition in Apokoronas
The Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICH) is the partner organisation for Greece in Chameleon, an innovative technology which is providing practical help to stock-raisers in Apokoronas.
Continue readingContinuing resistance to pharaonic projects
While the issues of the overhead power cables in Apokoronas and the wind farms in various parts of the Nomos of Chania may have temporarily faded from the headlines, representatives of the local populations who will be affected by what they have dubbed “pharaonic projects” have nevertheless remained active in drumming up support for their opposition.
Continue readingElectricity pylons over Apokoronas
The penalties of going green
In the current moves towards “carbon neutrality” it is often forgotten that the means which need to be employed in “saving the planet” may themselves be less than environmentally friendly. One of the arguments fielded against the wholesale adoption of electric cars is that the extraction of the metals used in manufacturing batteries is in itself environmentally destructive and that the electricity used to charge them at present comes mainly from fossil fuel generating plants. There are concerns that their extra weight will cause degradation of infrastructure, increased air pollution from tyre particles, and so on.
An essential oil of Apokoronas
Karabasi, the essential oil which has been produced since the 18th century in Tzitzifes of Apokoronas, has been recognised as a product of Greece’s intangible cultural heritage.
Continue readingCreation of a new dive park in Apokoronas
The mayor of Apokoronas, Haralambos Koukianakis, has announced that the creation of a dive park in Apokoronas has been included in the Cretan Regional Authority’s development plan for 2021-2025 under the Priority Category “Promotion of facilities for alternative forms of tourism (health and wellness, city breaks, agrotourism, mountain tourism etc.)”.
According to the announcement, the action is to be funded by the National Development Programme and relates to the creation of a recreational dive park at Ombrogialos beach in the northern part of Almirou Bay, south of Cape Drapanos. The area is administratively part of the municipality of Vamos.
Ombrogialos beach is rocky with steep inclines and deep water, exposed to the waves from the north east. There is little tourist activity in the area and a lack of basic infrastructure. The rudimentary harbour facilities, which are close to the proposed dive park, consist of a jetty and a slipway for launching boats. They are used as a base by divers heading for the Elephant Cave a few kilometres to the north.
The dive park will be situated between the depths of 8 and 25 metres, where the bottom slopes gently and is composed of sandy stretches with rocky outcrops and seagrass meadows.
For the implementation and smooth functioning of the dive park, a number of individual works and interventions will be needed to create an organised facility which is fit for purpose. The aim is to create a strong centre of attraction in the fast developing sector of sea diving tourism. Such places also tend to add value by creating homes for shoals of fish, thus increasing the area’s attraction.
The works required include the addition and removal of material in places on the sea bed, and the installation of the elements indispensable for the creation and functioning of a recreational dive park, namely accessible undersea features (artificial reefs and sunken ships), direction signs and lighting, and mooring points for visitors’ boats.
In making the announcement, the mayor of Apokoronas expressed his satisfaction with the development, since numerous bureaucratic obstacles had had to be overcome in order to bring the “labyrinthine” process to a conclusion. It had required 46 approvals and decisions by 8 ministers, and two joint ministerial decisions before its final publication in the Government Gazette (FEK). The effort had begun in the autumn of 2014 and its implementation will bring added value to the municipality’s tourist product, he said. Execution of the project is scheduled to begin on 20th March 2023 and to be completed by 31st December 2024.