RESIDENTS OF Achelia in Paphos are once again having to deal with disgusting odours and numerous flies from the wastewater treatment plant, SABA, close to their homes.
As summer temperatures rise, so do tempers as villagers face the annual stench and thousands of buzzing flies that emanate from the site.
Achelia community leader Sergis Thrassivoulou complained to the Cyprus Mail yesterday:
“It is a very bad situation for sure, and difficult for us all to live like this. If you want to go out walking and enjoying the village, you have to return home quickly as the smell is choking and overpowering,” he lamented.
“The worst months are the hottest ones, so I would say we have a problem from May until the end of September. It is really making us ill.”
“In the evenings it’s impossible to relax. You can’t sit on your veranda and enjoy a meal or a drink; there are too many flies.”
“I know from what people have told me that the women in particular find it embarrassing; if they have friends over, they make excuses as too why there are so many flies. They feel as if visitors think our homes are dirty,” he said.
“I believe they should do something now to fix this problem, we are especially afraid of disease for the village children, there are just so many flies,” he reiterated.
Mayor of Paphos and SABA president, Savvas Vergas, assured that this would be the last year the village would suffer.
Vergas stated that a large and efficient upgrade will take place soon, and would eradicate the terrible odour and abundant flies.
Cyprus is currently promoting construction of new sewerage networks and extensions to systems already in operation. In particular, this is to bring the island into line with European Directives by the end of 2012.
The current wastewater plant servicing the whole of Paphos is in Paleochorafa, 2km from the centre of Achelia village. Although no industrial wastewater is discharged into this system, it has to cope with household waste from thousands of homes.
Initial waste treatment consists of bar racks and a grid chamber, followed by two primary sedimentation tanks.
The secondary treatment involves phosphorus biological removal. This is followed by nitrification, de-nitrification and settlement in four tanks.
The final stage, the tertiary treatment, sees the partly cleaned waters’ chemical reduction of phosphorous content. It is then filtered through sand and passes through a chlorination tank. Finally it finishes its journey in two anaerobic tanks.
“People should just stay away from Achelia,” said one disgruntled resident. “I make no bones about it, we stink,” she said.
