Environmental licencing for Salamina Underwater Tunnel at the starting line

An Environmental Consultant will be recruited by the Ministry of Infrastructure for the successful licensing of the Environmental Impact Study of Salamina – Perama Underwater Road Tunnel.

According to a decision of the Ministry, it is of vital importance for this complex project, to ensure its viability while it is also necessary to prepare thematic units, for which there is no provision in the current EIS, and have been proposed by the participants of the tender.

In brief, the main ones are:

– Analysis of the existing air and noise pollution data of Perama and Salamina residential areas and comparison with the future situation after the operation of the underwater tunnel and the new road connection,

– Study of the project’s impact in the traffic conditions in the wider area of ​​Piraeus,

– Probe of the SEVESO III designs and the interaction of the project with: the facilities of ETEKA, AVIN and CORAL petroleum companies, the existence of toxic and flammable stored materials in Piraeus’ Porti adjacent industrial zone, the existence of a shipbuilding repair zone, 2 biogas plants (in Psytaleia and Schisto), the high traffic loads on Dimokratias Ave. within the perimeter of Perama municipality,

– Analysis of the changes that the project will bring on a social and economic level at the local communities and proposals for interventions that will maximize the project’s social value.

The budget for the above process is 132,680 euros (VAT incl.).

The project

The total length of the road link to be constructed reaches 12.5 km. Tender’s Phase B’ is currently in progress and at an advance stage. It is noted that on July 26th, the studies – proposals were submitted by the interested parties.

The elaboration of the Environmental Impact Study and the project’s licensing will bring us to the third and final stage of this lengthy competition (launched back in 2016), which is the submission of the financial offers that will decide the contractor, among the three participating contenders: a. METKA, b. TERNA and c. J/V AKTOR – VINCI. The cost of the project is currently estimated at 350mln euros (excl. VAT) and is considered one of the largest new generation infrastructure projects of the country.

Nikos Karagiannis-ypodomes.com

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