By Elias Hazou
WITH THE island now in its third year of drought, the signs are not encouraging for a solution to the water problem – and further cutbacks are inevitable unless drastic measures are taken.
Water needs have been partly satisfied by the desalination plant at Dhekelia, and the government plans to go ahead with constructing a second plant. This was originally scheduled to come on line last February, but delays have set its start date back to the middle of the year 2000.
The government has also put forward tenders for two ‘mobile’ desalination plants, which would jointly produce some 30,000 cubic metres per day.
Another solution is to use groundwater reserves, but environmental experts have warned that over-taxing these resources could have long-term adverse effects on the environment. They argue that it will take a long time to replenish these underground reserves, which have been slowly accumulating for the past hundred years. Sinking bore-holes is seen by everyone, including the government, as a last-ditch effort to keep the taps running.
This week the Limassol Water Board announced plans for a large-scale groundwater programme to meet about half of the town’s needs.
The search for solutions to the island’s water problems has turned into a race against time.
According to Gerry Caramondanis, Managing Director of Caramondani Desalination Plants Ltd, the plan for two mobile desalination plants is not “techno-economically” feasible, because there is no infrastructure on the island to support such plants which would require huge amounts of electricity to operate efficiently.
The mobile plants, Caramondanis argues, will actually be identical in principle to the desalination plant in Dhekelia but on a smaller scale, and it will take six months before they begin operating.
The Dhekelia plant opened in April 1997, initially producing a nominal 20, 000 cubic metres per day, which was later extended to 40,000. It uses the Reverse Osmosis Process to remove solids from the raw seawater in order to produce potable water in accordance with EU standards.
The process consists of four phases: seawater intake, pre-treatment, removal of solids (reverse osmosis) and adding of minerals. It produces some 13 million cubic metres of drinking water a year.
“These so-called proposed mobile plants would actually be stationary because of the sheer water input,” Caramondanis added.
So how bad are things? “If it doesn’t rain this winter, then the situation becomes desperate,” said Caramondanis. The desalination plant at Dhekelia has partly satisfied the needs of Larnaca, Nicosia and Famagusta by providing around 12,000 cubic metres a day to each city. But he added that Nicosia’s water needs in the winter alone are estimated at around 20,000 cubic metres, an amount which doubles in summer.
According to the Water development Department, the island’s 101 reservoirs are currently at around 10 per cent of capacity, holding some 27 million cubic metres of water. The government has said that these reserves will last until the end of the year, but only if further cuts are enforced.
Caramondanis maintained that the official figures given for the water in the island’s dams is highly misleading. These figures, he claims, include the dams at Asprokremmos and Evretou (Paphos), which are not connected to the southern conveyor that feeds potable water to Limassol, Nicosia, Famagusta and Larnaca.
“If you deduct Asprokremmos and Evretou, you are left with the six to seven million cubic metres in the Kourris dam in Limassol. On top of that, the water left in the Kourris dam is highly unclean and has to be continually treated with oxygenation to ensure it is potable,” he said.
The large quantities in the Asprokremmos and Evretou dams are used only for irrigation, and there is no treatment plant yet in Paphos to transform this into potable water. The two dams currently hold about 20 million cubic metres which, for all practical purposes, are dead weight.
Could this much-needed supply be pumped to the Kourris dam? “It would take almost two years to complete such construction,” said Caramondanis.
Cyprus has traditionally had to cope with water shortages, but clearly drastic measures are now necessary to provide at least some relief to its water-hungry residents.
