By Anthony O. Miller
LARNACA Mayor George Lycourgos yesterday threatened to mobilise public protests by residents opposed to plans for a second permanent desalination plant near the airport.
The first planned protest is a rally tomorrow at 12.30pm that will block traffic at the roundabout leading to Larnaca Airport, Lycourgos told a news conference yesterday.
Many residents oppose siting the desalination facility near the airport, citing adverse effects on the environment. They already feel under seige from air pollution caused by the island’s oil refinery, and the exhausts from jet aircraft.
They want the government to relocate the desalination plant to another site. They have long sought the relocation of the oil refinery, and the government has pledged to relocate it, but questions of cost may prohibit this.
“Just because there is an available space, it doesn’t mean that the unit should be put there. There are also other problems that the Minister (Costas Themistocleous, Agriculture) doesn’t mention,” Lycourgos said.
“He has told us that the building won’t cause any problems. It doesn’t have to do only with the building, but many other things,” he said, including pylons and high-tension wires. “There is the danger of upsetting the balance of the eco-system.”
“He hasn’t told us about that, because an environmental study would be necessary. How does he or anyone else know what will happen?” the mayor asked.
“There is one message to the Minister, and it has been confirmed by the experts: that he has to take out a site study, an environmental study in particular, and then decide,” on the site.
European Union environmental experts present at the news conference said the proposed permanent desalination plant would cause more damage to the already fragile Larnaca environment.
Faced with this, Lycourgos said, his municipality has no choice but to fight Themistocleous’ decision to site the new facility in Larnaca.
Two Israeli joint-venture companies last week won the bid to build the island’s second permanent desalination plant.
After the contract is signed, an environmental assessment will be done and reviewed before building begins, said Nicos Tsiourtis, Water Development Department (WDD) senior water engineer.
It will take “two months to carry out the (assessment) and two months to evaluate it,” Tsiourtis said. “So we’ll start work in the fifth month – by May or June.”
The new plant’s first water would not start flowing before December 2000 at the soonest, unless the new plant is finished earlier than the expected 18 months.
Cyprus gets 80 per cent of its water from aquifers, which are all dangerously over-pumped, bone-dry or too seawater-contaminated. It also draws 40,000 cubic metres of water daily from the Dhekelia desalination plant at peak output. Scant reservoir reserves provide the rest.
Meanwhile, the government hopes to award two tenders this week for two ‘mobile’ desalination plants to help Cyprus – in its fourth year of drought and strict rationing – get through the coming summer.
Their bids require them to be on-line 22 weeks after being awarded, and Tsiourtis said he hoped these would be adding to the island’s water reserves by “sometime between June and July”.
