By Anthony O. Miller
LARNACA Municipality appeared on a collision course with the government yesterday over plans to build a permanent desalination plant south of Larnaca Airport as well as other issues long irking city residents.
Larnaca Mayor George Lycourgos and a delegation from the city went to the Presidential Palace yesterday to discuss problems with the new facility’s siting, and left threatening legal against the government to halt its construction.
“There are many legal measures that we are now studying with our legal advisors at this moment. I think we are in a good position to secure an injunction against the government” to halt work on the plant, Lycourgos told a news conference after talks at the Palace.
Communications & Works Minister Leontios Ierodiaconou, a Palace talks participant, responded by declaring that, “if the municipality wants to act this way, the government can also.” He said he had expected more from the talks than Lycourgos’ lawsuit threats.
While noting that the matter was not part of his brief – “it is the Agriculture Minister (Costas Themistocleous) who handles the issue” – Ierodiaconou stressed the government would “defend itself legally on this matter”.
The minister said the government planned to look for “strategic investors” in Larnaca’s future in the next three months – a reference to plans to curb Larnaca Port’s freight operations and turn it into a pleasure boat marina and cruise harbour.
The government is finishing studies in preparation for seeking bids this spring on building six, perhaps seven, marinas around Cyprus with a capacity of some 5,000 boats to compete with the estimated 1,400 marinas ringing the Mediterranean.
Commerce Minister Nicos Rolandis has said he hopes marina tenders can be put out, builders chosen and work begun as early as June. The marina he envisions for Larnaca would berth 1,200 boats, versus its current marina’s 300-boat capacity.
Lycourgos went to the Palace as head of the Larnaca Struggle Committee of traders and residents, who have long complained the government has failed to invest adequately in the city’s infrastructure.
They said they wanted the island’s oil refinery removed from the coastal area north of the city, as promised, and road improvements completed, as pledged – both issues for which they said they had not yet found “a sympathetic ear” in the government.
On February 10, Lycourgos led townspeople and officials in blocking traffic at Larnaca Airport roundabout to protest against siting the permanent desalination plant nearby.
They also drew up a petition asking President Glafcos Clerides to intervene and stop all work locating the de-salting facility in the protected Alikon area of salt lake.
The petition charged the facility’s siting in an area already under ecological stress “breaks every rule of town planning and provocatively ignores local authorities as well as procedures calling for preparation of an environmental study.”
Yesterday Lykourgos reiterated these charges.
Two Israeli joint-venture companies won the bid to build the island’s second permanent desalination plant. Environmental impact assessments are already under way for the facility, which is expected to be completed by late 2000 or early 2100.
Larnaca residents oppose siting the de-salting facility near Larnaca Airport, lest the plant and the electricity pylons and wires erected to power it adversely affect the fragile ecosystem.
They already feel under seige from air pollution caused by the island’s oil refinery, just north of the city, and exhaust fumes from jet airliners at the airport to the south.
They claim the de-salting facility will only worsen things, and want the government to relocate the desalination plant to some other site. They have long sought – and the government has promised – the relocation of the oil refinery, but questions of cost may now prohibit this.
Themistocleous is also under fire from residents of Ayios Theodoros and Zakaki, near Limassol, who oppose his plans to build two ‘mobile’ desalination plants near their villages.
The two plants were seen as crucial to getting the island through this summer’s drought until the permanent desalination plant can go on-line. But Clerides has suggested waiting until the end of March to see how much rain falls before starting work.
A group called the “Ayios Theodoros Struggle Committee” has filed suit against the government to try to enjoin the siting of the two ‘mobile’ plants. A hearing is scheduled for May.
