In the village of Kallio in Fokida, the residents notice every day that the lake is shrinking rapidly. At the same time, the buildings of the village they left buried in the water are revealed, along with the memories from the past.
In 1980 when the technical lake of Mornos was completed the people who were there were forced to move to an altitude of 390 meters and create a new settlement. But most of them moved to Athens and other cities of the country. There, in the new settlement of Kallio, around 60 people live to see and observe every day that their childhood memories, their belongings, everything they left behind emerge from the waters of the lake.
The 80 houses in the submerged village of Kallio together with their church and their Primary School were “sacrificed” for the water supply of Athens. “For a project that covered the big problem of the capital, but without yielding any benefit for our region to this day” as they say with complaint.
All of them remember the old church of Evangelistria that has been covered by the waters and has not yet been revealed. They remember the Primary School that they now see standing in its place, their streets, alleys and cafes.
“When the first houses are revealed, the bells of the water shortage ring,” the president of the Kallio community, Apostolis Gerodimos, notes to APE-MPE.
These bells have rung a long time ago, not only in the area around Morno, but also in the wider area that affects all the points where Attica receives water either from Morno, or from Evinos, or even from Kopaida and Ylikis .
In Kopaida, a great battle is being fought to reduce the damages as thousands of acres will remain uncultivated, with what this means for the farmers’ productions. In previous years, they had a possibility to get quantities of water from EYDAP as well. Now this possibility is constantly being removed as in the reservoirs of EYDAP that supply Attica the level is falling and the stored water is constantly decreasing.
However, as the village of Kallio, buried in the waters of the lake, continues to be revealed, the alarm has sounded in all directions. The measurements are multiplying, the alarm bell has rung.
“We have experienced such a situation since 1993” notes the president of the community of Kallio Apostolis Gerodimos and continues saying that “since then 30 years have passed. Of course, the lake level was dropping. It snowed and rained in the winter, consequently replenishing the amount of water. Now the situation is becoming nightmarish. As the water level drops, buildings from the submerged village will be revealed. If it doesn’t rain in the winter, the problem will become much bigger” as he notes, expressing the hope “that we will not live again what we lived 30 years ago”.
As Deputy Mayor Kostas Koutsoumbas notes in APE – MEP “the level of the lake has dropped 40 meters from the overflow limit” and as he claims “the constant rain is accelerating its fall. Of course, now it has not reached the situation it reached in 1993 which was the peak. Compared to 1993, we are at a better level, but if the water shortage continues and no rains and snows fall in the area, it will be a nightmarish situation.”
Yannis Laios who lives in Kallio remembers that “in 1993 the lake had reached its limit and the water could not flow freely into the canal and they had to bring in pumps”. But he believes that “the situation now is worse” as, as he says, “then Evinos did not fall into the lake”. He argues, at the same time, that as a reservoir, the lake of Mornos “does not have the same capacity as in the past as materials carried by the streams are constantly brought into the lake and raise its bottom and in this way constantly reduce its capacity”.
All eyes are on the sky as, they insist, the situation is critical and no one knows what will happen next. The hope for rain and snow remains alive. This will not only relieve Attica but also the producers in the Kopaida region who see their harvest sacrificed
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