HIGHLY TOXIC liquid waste was deliberately dumped into the drainage system at the new Larnaca airport, from which rainwater flows into the eco-protected Salt Lake, the Environment Services confirmed yesterday.
Charalambos Hadjiparkos, senior administrative officer at the service, said they were informed on Wednesday that traces of the toxic substance had been discovered in the drainage system but were still waiting for confirmation that the same toxic material was present in samples taken from the Salt Lake itself.
According to Hadjiparkos, on April 23 the service had been tipped off by a whistleblower working for the Cypriot company installing the air-conditioning systems at the new airport intended to clear out the pipes and dump any waste into the sea.
He also informed his employers that he had notified the Environment Services after which he was reportedly fired.
The very next day, the same employee notified the Environment Service that the company in question had changed its mind and would now be dumping the waste into the Salt Lake instead.
Hadjiparkos said the service then contacted the company, warning them that such action was illegal, and that they were liable to a fine of €85,000 and/or a prison sentence of up to three years.
Despite this, the whistleblower called the Environment Services again – this time tipping them off that the company was in fact dumping the waste into the Salt Lake.
A team of government inspectors was dispatched to the site, and company officers indicated to them the precise location of the dumping. As it turned out, the waste was being funneled into the rainwater drainage system, which feeds into the Salt Lake.
GREENS yesterday cried foul, claiming a cover-up while Larnaca Mayor Andreas Moyseos said he had learned about it from the newspapers.
“The only thing we know is that a dismissed employee made a complaint,” the Mayor said. “From then on whether it’s true and to what extent will be shown by the government services.”
Greens deputy and party spokesman George Perdikis put it more strongly. “This should have been publicised immediately. The Environment Service has kept this a secret for three weeks. I made an inquiry one week ago and still have not received any reply or information,” he said.
“We should not make accusations based purely on indications, but the indications we have so far are very worrying that there may be a cover-up.”
Perdikis said whistleblower indicated that were phosphates in the waste. “But we cannot be sure until the results of the lab test are released,” said Perdikis.
Airport operator Hermes contracted a French corporation for the airport’s construction, and they in turn sub-contracted a Cypriot company to install the air conditioning systems, Perdikis said. “It appears that each party is putting the blame on the other and the sub-contractor is putting the blame on the engineer who brought the issue to the surface,” he added.
BirdLife Executive Manager Martin Hellicar said yesterday his organisation had not been informed on what happened but they had not noticed any sick or dead birds in recent weeks in the vicinity of the lake.
“This is a top priority site for us and if there is a risk of potential harm [to the wildlife] we will be investigating,” he said. “How dangerous this [substance] is we don’t know yet.”
Following the adoption of EU environmental regulations and particularly the Environmental Liability Directive that embraces the ‘polluter pays’ principle, the polluting company – and not its employees or the taxpayer – is forced to pay the cost of remedying the damage it caused.
Applied to the case of the Larnaca Salt Lake if it is proved that the air-conditioning sub-contractors did in fact dump toxic waste, their fine should be in the range of hundreds of thousands of euro.
“I cannot understand why the authorities are delaying this process,” Perdikis said.
