By Martin Hellicar
ZAKAKI will have a desalination plant by next summer, Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous vowed yesterday, despite strong local opposition to the development.
The government still believes desalination is the solution to the island’s chronic water shortage, and residents of the Limassol suburb will just have to accept it, was the gist of what the minister told a press conference yesterday.
Zakaki residents do not want the plant in their “back yards” and have threatened to blockade roads to the proposed site for the plant.
Themistocleous said the plant would be put out to tender in the next few days. He promised that the government’s desalination programme would mean an end to water cuts for homes.
“The aim of desalination is to produce, in total, 120,000 cubic metres of water a day. When we produce this 120,000 cubic metres of water a day the government will implement its promise to end all restrictions on water supply for the whole of Cyprus,” the minister said.
He said local opposition was not justified as an environmental impact study had given the Zakaki plant a clean bill of health.
Themistocleous complained that local officials were only against the plant because they belonged to opposition parties.
Apart from the Zakaki plant, the state wants to build another unit at Ayios Theodoros in the Larnaca area and has awarded an Israeli firm a contract to build a plant at Larnaca. An existing plant at Dhekelia produces 40,000 cubic metres of water daily.
Shortly after Themistocleous’ press conference, the green party held its own media briefing to lambast government desalination plans once again, describing state water policy as “criminal”.
“It aims to serve the interests of golf course businesses, desalination plant contractors and water bottlers,” the environmentalists claimed.
“The fanatical promotion of desalination plants, without there being any long-term measures for solving the water problem, is leading the country to destruction,” they added.
The party charged the government with ducking dialogue on the issue and “hiding” dam water supplies in an effort to convince the public of the need for desalination.
Desalination is an energy-hungry, and therefore polluting, process. Environmentalists argue that water conservation, particularly in agriculture, would be a better long-term policy.
Farmers Union Eke yesterday demanded that the government end strict water rationing for salad growers, a measure enforced to save limited water reserves.
