OFFPLAN NEWS

(21.05.2007 )
Albanian property Illegal and dangerous: Albania's risky new real estate

DURRES, ALBANIA – The abandoned Porto Romano chemical plant has no fences around it, no signs warning that this Albanian property is one of the most severely contaminated places in the Balkans. Residents and visitors must draw their own conclusions from the puddles of yellow water on the grounds and mounds of Day-Glo yellow waste spread around the surrounding neighborhood.
But thousands of Albanians fleeing extreme poverty in the north of the country are now squatting in makeshift homes in and near the plant, where soil and groundwater pollutants are at 4,000 times the acceptable levels set by the European Union. Some have built homes from materials scavenged from factory structures. Their children use the plant as a playground, while family cows and sheep graze on weeds growing from the slag heaps.

"We know its bad for us here, but we have nowhere else to go," says Flutorime Jani, whose family lives in a former pesticide warehouse within the plant. "The authorities don't do anything to help us," she says before returning to her home.

The situation at the Porto Romano plant on the outskirts of Durres illustrates the distance reformers still have to travel. While some officials – like Edi Rama, the mayor of Tirana, who has implemented quality-of-life improvements in the nation's capital – have fought to win back public trust, there is still a long way to go. Many people are suspicious of anything the government says or does. Public property gets little respect, and people have grown accustomed to simply occupying any uninhabited space: city parks, rural land, even factories. The lack of public trust in state institutions has made it harder for this impoverished nation to build a viable economy, healthcare system, or even basic infrastructure.

At the Porto Romano plant, more than a year has passed since a team of United Nations experts alerted local and national authorities to the severity of the situation. But since the warnings, officials have failed to erect a fence or even place warning signs to ward off newcomers.

The plant produced pesticides and leather-tanning chemicals until it closed in 1990, along with most of Albania's industrial sector. A year ago, samples taken by UN Environment Program scientists revealed that the plant and its surroundings were contaminated with pesticides and heavy metals including chromium-6, a toxin well-known since the movie "Erin Brockovich."

An estimated 6,000 people now live in the contaminated zone, virtually all of them squatters who have moved to the outskirts of Albania's second-largest city during the past decade in search of a better life. Albanians were forbidden to move from their home villages under communism. Since 1991, hundreds of thousands of rural villagers have migrated to larger towns, creating halos of shantytowns around larger cities such as Durres and Tirana. Albanian officials haven't dared challenge squatters on state land because they feel it would be politically suicidal to take on a group that large.

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