A modern Battle of Marathon has been simmering in recent months over plans to build the Olympic Rowing and Canoeing Centre at Schinias, a site archaeologists consider of great historical significance and environmentalists of irreplaceable ecological value.
The seaside region of Schinias, 45 km from the centre of Athens, is located on the historic Plain of Marathon, where in 490BC the Athenians successfully rebuffed the invading Persian army in the celebrated Battle of Marathon. Moreover, the area boasts a variety of natural habitats, including a rare Stone Pine (pinus pinea) sand dune forest and an important coastal wetland.
According to WWF Greece and other environmental groups opposing the plans, the proposed construction projects will cause irreversible damage to an ecologically precious area. The organization has lodged a complaint with the European Commission, claiming the plans violate sections 3,4, and 6 of the EU Habitats Directive. The Commission's decision is expected to be announced at the end of April.
The Schinias site contains at least six important habitat types protected under the Habitats Directive; it is also home to at least 110 species of birds protected by the Birds Directive - including the glossy ibis, the marsh harrier, the black-winged stilt and the kingfisher.
Archaeologists and classicists also strongly oppose the Olympic construction plans at Schinias, which they say would despoil the historic battle's landscape. Schinias objectors include scholars from the University of Cambridge, the University of London, and the University of Heidelberg, as well as the members of the Academy of Athens and the Athens Archaeological Society.
However, the Athens 2004 Olympic Organizing Committee, the ministries of Environment and Culture, along with as the mayor of Marathon, dispute environmentalists' claims that the rowing centre will cause ecological damage to the area and are set to prove that the project will actually improve the environmental condition of the site.
In statements made in Athens in the aftermath of its annual meeting, the International Olympic Committee's Sport and Environment Commission endorsed the government's plan and stated that, "there is no viable alternative to the Schinias site for Olympic rowing competitions." This position was echoed by Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC's coordinating committee for Athens 2004, in comments made to the French daily Le Monde last month, where Rogge added his personal guarantee that the plans would respect the site's ecological and historical value.
History of a dispute
The planned Olympic complex includes two artificial 2,500m-long rowing lakes, a dock for motorboats, a three-storey starting tower, a four-storey finish tower, restaurants and dormitories, a helipad, a gas station, grandstands for 15,000 spectators and parking spaces for mass transportation vehicles.
Environmentalists' opposition to the plans officially began in 1998, when WWF Greece, the Hellenic Ornithological Society, the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature and the Hellenic Society for the Protection of the Environment and Cultural Heritage launched a joint campaign to lobby national authorities to change three of the proposed Olympic venues, including Schinias.
With the cooperation of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) Laboratory of Urban Environment, they set out to develop alternative proposals. Two of the Olympic venues were subsequently changed. As an alternative to Schinias, the NTUA team proposed Yliki lake, located 82km from Athens, as an ideal location for the Olympic rowing facilities.
A change of venue for the rowing centre was finally denied and in June 2000, a Presidential decree was signed designating the area as a National Park, which would include the rowing centre within its boundaries. The work is to be funded by the Third Community Support Framework as a wetland restoration plan. According to the environmental organizations, however, the inclusion of the rowing centre within the national park is incompatible with the conservation of its fragile habitats.
Among the chief issues raised is the inadequacy of local water sources to simultaneously supply the lakes and sustain the freshwater marsh. Plans to supply the lakes during the 2004 Olympic Games with water pumped in from Marathon Lake (16 km NW of Schinias and a major source of drinking water for the Athens area) are necessarily short-term, given Greece's perennial water shortages.
What's more, ecologists claim that following the Olympics, the diversion of local freshwater supplies for the rowing pools will reduce both surface and groundwater levels, resulting in the intrusion of salt water and leading to the rapid degradation the wetlands and the Stone Pine forest.
Active opposition
The Greek ecological organizations Archelon, Arcturos,
mOm and the Hellenic Wildlife Hospital have joined the initial group of four in their opposition to the plan. In a position paper, signed last August, they state that the proposal "does not safeguard one of the ecologically most important areas of Attica, but rather corrupts the very idea of conservation thus indirectly putting at risk the integrity of every other protected area in Greece".
The WWF complaint to the European Commission, lodged last May, is also supported by UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Europe's largest environmental protection organization with one million members. The Society's scientists have visited the site and pointed out that the Olympic development plans would violate both the Birds and the Habitats Directives of the European Union.
In a letter presented at a March 14 WWF Greece press conference, European Environmental Commissioner Margot Wallstrom confirmed EU's recognition of the environmental significance of the Schinias habitats. That same month, the International Federation of Landscape Architects sent letters to Greek government, IOC officials, UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites stating that construction of the Rowing Centre in Schinias would entail "the total destruction of one of the most important and admirable historic sites in the country."
