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A greek plan to build Europe’s biggest water diversion is based on a
serious over-estimate of the available water, according to a leading
British hydrologist. Ted Hollis, of University College London claims that
the scheme may not deliver the water promised to Greek farmers – and
threatens the survival of one of Europe’s most valuable wetlands.

The Acheloos Diversion Project, costing $1.8 billion, will redraw
the hydrological map of mainland Greece. It will trap water behind two high
dams on the Acheloos river, Greece’s largest river, and divert it through
tunnels in the Pindos Mountains to irrigate almost 2000 square kilometres of
rice, cotton and tobacco fields on the Plain of Thessaly to the east of the
mountains.

But, says Hollis, the amount of water flowing in the Acheloos is 40 per cent
less than the Greek government claimed in its request for funding from the
European Community.

Last month, the Greek government applied for a grant of 80 million Ecus
(£63 million) from the Community’s Structural Fund, which
aims to develop the poorer nations of southern Europe. The money would help
to pay for a dam 150 metres high at Sykia and for the main 18-kilometre
tunnel that would carry 35 cubic metres of water a second through the Pindos
Mountains.

The construction contract will go to Tayeuro, a consortium headed by Taylor
Woodrow UK. A decision on the grant is expected within six weeks.

The Greek government’s environmental impact assessment of the scheme claims
that the flow of the Acheloos is 5 cubic kilometres per year, and the scheme
would remove 1.1 cubic kilometres, or 22 per cent. But Hollis, who took
part in a Community mission to the region last July, says that these figures
are ‘of uncertain origin and questionable reliability’. The environmental
assessment is ‘technically pretty poor’, he says.

Hollis has carried out his own independent assessment of the scheme’s
hydrology, using alternative flow data provided by the Public Power
Corporation of Greece, which operates hydroelectric power stations along
the river. This shows much lower average flows, and a dramatic fall in the
amount of water in the river over the past decade.

The power corporation’s figures for the Acheloos, says Hollis, reveal an
average flow of 3.6 cubic kilometres over the past 25 years ‘declining
after 1973, and especially after 1983′. Since 1985, flow has averaged 3.1
cubic kilometres, almost 40 per cent less than the Greek government claims.

Environmentalists, including the World Wide Fund for Nature, warn that the
Acheloos diversion will badly damage the Missolonghi wetland at the mouth of
the Acheloos. Greece has listed the wetland under the Ramsar Convention as
of international importance to bird life, and it is a ‘special protected
area’ under European legislation to protect birds. It is one of the
continent’s last breeding grounds for the endangered Dalmatian pelican.

Bruce Millan, the European commissioner who oversees the Structural Fund,
claimed earlier this year that ‘these environmental objections have been
resolved’. This is hard to reconcile with the warnings contained in a
memorandum Hollis sent to senior officials who accompanied him on last
summer’s fact-finding mission.

In it, Hollis says that ‘the problem of data reliability throws doubt on
both the overall design of the whole scheme and estimates of its impact on
the (Acheloos) delta and wetlands complex’. But it is unclear whether
Hollis’s criticisms have reached Millan. ‘Despite repeated requests, I have
never been allowed to see the official report of the mission,’ Hollis said
last week.

Hollis says that, besides overestimating the flow of the Acheloos, the Greek
government has made two serious mistakes in its assessment of the
environmental impact of the scheme. First it makes no allowance either for
evaporation of water from five planned reservoirs, which could reduce the
available water by 6 per cent.

Secondly, the government’s calculation of the reduction in the amount of
water reaching the Missolonghi wetland is based on total flow in the river.
It should be based on the amount of water currently reaching the wetland,
which is already reduced by the abstraction of water for irrigation.

Once these corrections are made, says Hollis, even the Greek government’s
flow data suggest that, when the diversion is in operation, the wetland will
receive 33 per cent less water than at present – probably causing large
areas to dry up. And using the power corporation’s flow data for the past 40
years, he estimates an average loss to the wetland of 39 per cent.

Hollis also questions whether the diversion scheme can deliver as much water
to the eastern plains as claimed. Often, there is simply insufficient water
in the river. The government’s flow data, he says, suggest that less than
three-quarters of the promised amount could be guaranteed.

And his own calculations, based on the power corporation’s flow figures,
suggest that in some recent years there would have been insufficient water
to supply the diversion tunnel for five out of the six months of summer.
Water would have been most scarce during dry summers, when farmers needed it
most.

One further consequence of the diversion will be to reduce the amount of
water left in the river to fill reservoirs that drive the turbines at
downstream hydroelectric plants.