The topic of the wind farms in Lakka Souli, but also projects without projects… of the Epirus Region, were the subject of the press conference held on Monday by the “People’s Mobilization of the Epirus Region”.
The head of LASY and re-candidate for Regional Governor George Prentzas argued that the regional authority supports the installation of wind-monsters in Lakka Suli, Grammos and Smolika, as it supports the overall policy of “green development”, being a belt of the central political choices of the government and the EU for the benefit of large business groups that will “bone out” the Fund’s subsidies Recovery.
The role of the district proves to be the absorption of the “shocks” of the completely justified popular reactions, with various kinds of strategies like the ones it did at the last meeting of the district council, which while verbally declaring opposition to the projects, in practice did everything it could for them to proceed projects.
Specifically, while, after the pressures of the “People’s Rally”, the Regional Authority was forced to introduce the issue to the agenda, it was not referred by the competent committee, with the result that the body did not decide on the specific projects. Despite the fact that it was requested in writing by “LA.SY”, no recommendation from the competent agency for the environmental side of the issue was ever presented.
The police were also called as a precaution, proving that they treat the residents of the fight committee who are defending their place and their professional activity as potential criminals.
According to Mr. Prenza, the chairman of the Environment Committee who was supposed to refer the matter, even went to the gathered residents before the meeting, to urge them to leave with the argument that… “nothing substantial will be done today”. “It has been proven once again that they are afraid of the popular factor, that they want to pass on to society the perception that they are capable of deciding for the interests of the people, when in reality they are deciding with the sole criterion of the interests of big capital,” stressed Mr. Prentzas.
The president of the regional council and the regional governor, in the call of the “People’s Solidarity” to propose the issue of wind farms so that the residents who had given up their homes and jobs to attend the regional council would not suffer, insisted that the order of the issues should not be changed so that discourage the people from the long delay and finally, indeed, the matter was discussed 13The.
The head of LASY emphasized, among other things: “The deputy governor of Preveza shamelessly called the residents “fools” who came to a meaningless process. A few days earlier, however, in a meeting at his office in Preveza, with pats on the back and wide smiles, he assured that he would take any kind of initiative to prevent the project from being carried out.
The regional governor did not announce any intervention in DIPA and the ministry as he did – without even a decision of the regional council – in other cases (closed fencing, High Technology Park).
The only reason the 2020 resolution for the RES regional board position was brought back is the fact that the residents themselves were in the room and lobbying with their presence.
However, we estimate that he will have the luck of the unanimous resolution of the regional council on the necessity of passing a train from Epirus, which Mr. Kahrimanis wrote with great ease in his old tsarouchias, when he had to defend Mr. Mitsotakis who then the crime of Tempe spoke “of a midsummer night’s dream” of the possible train to Epirus”.
Bridges and sand dunes
Ms. Konstantina Zeka referred to the complaints that have seen the light of day regarding the payment of a project by the Region of Epirus for the protection of bridge piers in Asprohori and Katamachi, in which while the contractor was paid €109,432.07 out of the total of €153,639.99 that the project is costed, yet absolutely no work appears to have been done.
This is another one of the cases where previous works supposedly for cleaning the bed of a river had the result of taking so much material that the foundations of the bridges were destroyed.
With this type of work, the Triantafyllou bridge in Gotista and the bridge in Artopoula have already collapsed, for which the “People’s Mobilization of the Epirus Region” made complaints in the past
The regional councilor made public the technical report describing the work that should have been doneand which have not been done and publicly called on the district to provide the evidence substantiating the 100k payment order cut for the contractor. He also informed that the administrative procedure of filing documents, inquiries etc. will be followed for the matter
Finally, he said that such road safety projects – not the million-euro roundabouts in the middle of nowhere like the Episkopiko junction – should, at least in Epirus which is full of rivers, have been done for years with studies and of course with care for the removal of material.
The cleaning of the rivers, the protection of the bridges, in general the anti-flood protection of the area is non-existent, while there are also cases where environmental crimes are committed in the name of anti-flood protection, such as that of Louros.
The uncontrolled sand mining denounced by the “People’s Gathering” is anyway an environmental degradation for which no one is accountable and of course no one pays for the material taken from the rivers and used in other projects. The Region of Epirus and the ND government provide full coverage for the destruction of the rivers of Epirus, he argued.
Ms. Zeka invited the people to draw conclusions because, as she mentioned, the District’s projects are done with money that comes from public taxation, money that comes out of the pockets of the people, who pay double and triple to hear that climate change is to blame for the fact that it burns in summer and suffocates in winter. While he did not fail to request that this complaint be a voting criterion for strengthening the People’s Rally in the upcoming regional elections.
