12/10/2024
WHY WINDPARKS SHOULD NOT BE INSTALLED IN MANI - A SUMMARY
Wind energy is necessary. It is being legitimately developed in Greece for the purposes of the green transition.
However, wind energy development must be done in a legal way, at appropriate locations while protecting other valuable goods, exactly as provided for by Greek and European legislation.
THE MANI
Mani is a special place for Greece.
Mani has been a mountainous region, remote and inaccessible, unconquered by the Ottomans and independent for many centuries. It has no major roads or ports.
For these reasons it has never been developed industrially. It has preserved very strong Byzantine elements in everyday life, in orchards and cobbled streets, in villages, churches, monasteries, ancient paths and in the landscape.
Mani has hundreds of medieval and Byzantine monuments scattered in villages and orchards. For this reason, visitors from all over Europe visit it every year and throughout the year. Artists and writers have written and painted and written songs about Mani. It has been narrated by Patrick Lee Fermor and painted by Nikos Hadjikyriakos Ghikas. Alexis Zorbas and Nikos Kazantzakis had their mine in Mani.
Many families today – Greeks and foreigners – buy traditional houses, restore them and choose to live in Mani because of the peace and beauty of the landscape and the simplicity of everyday life. The traditional villages of Messinian Mani are slowly being revived in this way. Literary and music festivals have started in the wider area, mainly in Kardamili but also in the surrounding villages. The mountain trails are used for a large part of the year.
For these reasons, Mani is not suitable for large-scale wind farms.
THE PROJECT MORES II
To be specific, the proposed project should not be implemented for the following special reasons:
i. The area has low to medium wind potential. The electricity grid of Peloponnese is saturated anyway. This is why the project proposes to channel energy to Central Greece with a new underground cable, at a cost that is disproportionately high and a huge environmental disturbance.
ii. The proposed intervention will interfere with a very large part of Taygetos and will radically damage a Natura 2000 protected area.
iii. The proposed project will interfere with a landscape of unparalleled natural beauty (Thalames, Lagkada, Itilo, Limeni) that features nature and villages combined in a harmonious way.
iv. The project is within the 1500 meters zone from the traditional settlements of Thalames and Lagkada (which the Environmental Impact Assessment Study erroneously specifies as non-traditional settlements). No wind farms should be installed within that zone.
v. The project is developed within the protected zone of the archaeological site of Mystras, and in the archaeological zones of Thalames and Itilo. It is adjacent to many other monuments of our cultural heritage.
vi. The proposed project will radically harm tourism in Mani both during its construction – with dozens of trucks passing through the villages every day for one and a half to two years – and with its installation since it will interfere with the landscape throughout the coastal zone of Mani.
vii. The mountains where the wind turbines will be installed are visible from many villages and beaches, many of which are famous for their beauty and serenity, e.g. Limeni from where the seven wind turbines of the third wind farm will probably be visible (the Study does not contain wind turbine visibility estimates).
viii. The project will radically damage the hiking tourism of the entire region since it will radically change its character.
ix. The project will halt the revival of the mountainous villages of the area and will stop the preservation of the architectural heritage of Mani, since It will make them unsuitable destinations for those who love nature and the serenity of the landscape.
x. During construction, the passage of trucks through the small areas of the region and the villages will be a dangerous and particularly irritating process. In fact, the passage of 45 meters long trucks may require the opening of new roads to bypass the narrow roads of the villages, e.g. in Kampos, Kardamyli, Nomitsi, Lagkada, etc. and will further destroy the region's landscape, crops and churches.
THE PROJECT
The proposed MORES II project is huge. In fact it concerns three separate wind farms of 37 wind turbines in three different locations on three different mountain peaks. The distance from the northern arc of the first park to the southern end of the third park is 11.4 kilometers.
The extent of the interventions on the mountain, i.e. the area that will be leveled in order to construct 37 squares and 48 km of new roads, is enormous: 869 000 square meters.
These works will be carried out approximately one to two kilometers from the traditional settlements of Thalames and Lagkada.
The project also proposes a new installation of a high-voltage overhead network through Taygetos, through the archaeological site of Mystras, and up to Tripoli, as well as an undersea cable to Central Greece, where electricity will become available, since the Peloponnese network is saturated. The environmental damage will be enormous with no substantial benefits to electricity supply.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT STUDY
The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study is defective in its content. It does not support the implementation of the project, it does not comply with the legal obligations of the company and lacks any legal substance:
● The EIA study lacks important "Annexes" that should include detailed analyses of the designers, e.g. on noise, on spatial positioning context, on interconnections, on visual disturbance. There are no such annexes. The relevant pages are blank! The Environmental Impact Assessment Study is not even minimally adequate.
● Similar problems are evident in the parallel Application of the company for the MORES I project in Arcadia, where similar deficiencies and blank pages are observed.
● The EIA Study is wrong about whether Thalames is a traditional settlement.
● The EIA study is wrong about whether Lagkada is a traditional settlement.
● The EIA study adopts several incompatible measurements for distances from settlements.
● The EIA study does not comment on or understand the illegality of the installation of a high voltage network at the archaeological site of Mystras.
● The EIA study does not examine the consequences of the construction of the proposed air interconnection project from Mani to Nestani.
● The EIA study does not examine the effects of the intervention on the mountain in relation to the environment. The study foresees a Photorealistic Imaging Component on page 16-7 of the study. It also cites specific research that is supposed to be included in Annex VI. There is no such Annex. (Study, p. 9-190).
● The study does not examine the impact on transport in the area during construction. The passage of trucks through the small roads of the area and the villages will be a dangerous and exceptionally irritating process.
● The study does not examine whether the narrow roads of the area fit trucks 45 meters long.
● The study does not examine the consequences for tourism, nor for the monasteries of the area, such as the Monastery of Panagia Giatrissa.
CONCLUSION
Mani is not suitable for any large-scale wind farm installation project.
This proposal is contrary to national planning policy and legislation and cannot be accepted.
The Environmental Impact Assessment is defective. It does not meet the elementary procedural requirements of legality of the company's proposal. Any approval of this proposal can be challenged in the Greek and European Courts.
