By Anthony O. Miller
MORE and prolonged restrictions on water use, especially in the Limassol area, will have to be endured if Parliament’s vote against a new desalination plant at Zakaki is maintained and the rains continue to fail.
That was the warning yesterday in the wake of the refusal by deputies to fund the new plant. Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous warned bluntly that the people of Limassol would suffer as a result.
“Parliament is not helping the government solve the crucial water problem,” he said following Thursday’s vote. “That means the people of Limassol will suffer more if we don’t have the (Zakaki) desalination plant ready in time.”
Themistocleous told the Cyprus Mail he would brief the cabinet in the coming days, and it would discuss how to proceed.
Water Development Department (WDD) Senior Water Engineer Nicos Tsiourtis echoed the minister. He warned that if the rains continued to fail, and the Zakaki veto stood, “we are going to have more restrictions” on water use and they “will be prolonged” for as much as the two years it could take to find another site and build a plant. Limassol residents would suffer the most, he said.
The deputies’ vote denied the WDD the funds to run power poles to the planned site of the plant, and to run a pipeline from the site to the Limassol water authority pipelines, Themistocleous said.
The 21-18 vote against the funding came as the WDD is weighing seven tenders to build the plant, Tsiourtis said.
Akel and Edek members were joined by Disy deputy Stelios Stylianou and Diko Deputy Marios Matsakis in defeating the Zakaki funding in Thursday’s vote. Matsakis won special Diko approval to break party ranks and vote with his conscience. Tsiourtis said the vote surprised him because Disy, Diko and the United Democrats together had a majority in the House, but “not enough members were there” from the three parties.
Matsakis denounced the government response as “a trick”. He said Themistocleous “will be using the water restrictions as a blackmailing tactic because it has been proved beyond doubt that applying water restrictions does not save water”. “People just have bigger tanks and they store the water during the time the water is not restricted,” Matsakis said.
He said the real restrictions were needed in farming, where he said water was wasted growing surpluses of water-intensive crops. “I strongly believe that it is the wrong decision to place the desalination plant in the (Zakaki) location.”
He proposed two alternative sites. One near the Vassiliko power plant, where there is already extensive industrial work, the other in Episkopi Bay, within SBA territory, but far from any built-up area.
Akel Deputy Andreas Christou and Edek’s Doros Theodorou said they voted against the Zakaki site because it was too close to beaches where thousands of tourists and Limassol residents swam in the summer, and because of faulty environmental site studies.
“We propose the same plant at another place,” Christou said. Theodorou blamed the government for failing to carry out a thorough environmental study of the area before deciding on Zakaki.
The Zakaki site sparked popular opposition from the moment it was announced. Residents of Ayios Theodoros similarly protested at government plans to site a desalination plant in their village. But Theodorou claimed the Ayios Theodoros plan was shelved “only because someone with big interests intervened”.
Former defence minister Yiannakis Omirou, of Edek, called on the government to carry out a thorough environmental study before building the plant. “We want a credible study on which we can take a decision. We cannot pick areas, they have to prepare several studies for the environmental consequences. That’s the key,” he said.
