Greek lake Quarantined  after deadly bacteria kills birds*

SALONIKA, Sept 19 (AFP) Sep 19, 2007

Authorities in northern Greece said Wednesday they had cordoned off a
protected wetlands where scores of birds were found dead from suspected
bacteria poisoning.

"We are facing a possible crisis at Lake Koroneia... but there is no
public health risk," Salonika prefect Panagiotis Psomiadis told an
emergency meeting of health and environment officials.

Some 200 birds -- including flamingos, avocets, shelducks, sandpipers
and terns -- were found dead over the weekend at Lake Koroneia.

The wetland is listed on an international convention called Ramsar that
aims to protect areas that have suffered successive environmental disasters.

Tests by Salonika's Aristotelio University showed that the birds died
from a "cocktail" of cyanobacteria and other organisms that flourished
because of heat and drought, Psomiadis said.

"These micro-organisms pose no harm to people unless they enter the food
chain," the prefect said.

Bird flu was ruled out, he said.

Aristotelio biology professor Maria Moustaka told the meeting that
Koroneia is an ecosystem "near death."

Hunting and grazing have been prohibited around the lake some 30
kilometres (19 miles) southeast of Salonika.

In 2004, thousands of birds and fish died at Koroneia from an outbreak
of botulism, caused by a bacterium that develops in stagnant or polluted
waters and produces a potent neurotoxin.

But the underlying causes of the crisis are man-made, insists Stavros
Yfantis, deputy director of the Hellenic Ornithological Society.

Illegal boring by farmers has drawn out groundwater and textile-dyeing
factories in the region have been dumping untreated waste into the
lake's tributary streams for years, Yfantis told AFP.

"It's a completely absurd situation, a Ramsar-protected lake that has
become a death trap," Yfantis said.

Lake Koroneia is one of several sites Greece is obliged to protect under
the Ramsar Convention, but the park has struggled to survive for lack of
funding.

"All of Greece's national parks have trouble operating," Yfantis said.
"The funding exists but stifling bureaucracy leaves staff unpaid for
months."

In 2005, the European Court of Justice sanctioned Greece for taking
insufficient steps to protect the lagoon of Messolonghi in the west of
the country, another Ramsar site.