THE BEACH at Curium was off limits yesterday after being shut down following dozens of complaints of human excrement floating in the water.
Red flags were raised on the beach on Wednesday after lifeguards deemed the water unfit for swimming following a slew of complaints to the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) over the past two weeks.
The flag was changed to yellow yesterday, which means that although the waste had been cleaned up, it was not recommended to swim until the source of the contamination is identified
On Wednesday swimmers were literally summoned out of the sea by lifeguards who decided that the prevalence of the waste was too much to ignore.
It was also reported that the surrounding beaches of Paramali and Avdimou had been besmirched by the disturbing phenomenon, the cause of which is suspected by authorities to be a broken pipeline, possibly originating from the British Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs).
Officials from the CTO, the SBA and the health services visited the affected area on Wednesday, even though the relevant authorities had been made aware of the problem when it first began at the end of July.
Despite undertaking a concerted process of elimination in locating possible sources, the origin has not yet been identified. The possibility that the waste came from a passing ship has been ruled out due to the absence of any vessels in the area for such as sustained period of time.
Glafkos Kariolou, the CTO official in charge of beaches, told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that at 11.25am, “the beach was completely clean, and there is a jet ski going out every hour to scour the sea to identify any new clusters of waste coming into the area.”
Kariolou said that he was “99.9 per cent sure that the source of the contamination is on dry ground, and somewhere in the four kilometres between Curium and Paramali Marina”.
Of the SBAs, he said they were “definitely suspect” as was “every restaurant, building and house in the area”
“The authorities of the bases had been informed of this problem when it first appeared a couple of weeks ago, and to the best of my knowledge they have been trying to investigate any possible leaks in their territory,” he said.
Authorities from the bases had been present during the visit on Wednesday, but that they had “focused on the theory that the source of the problem is coming from ships.
“This is highly unlikely, as most ships have either a ‘crushing toilet’ that grinds up the waste before expelling it, or their own septic tanks. The shape of the excrement that has been washing up does not correspond to this, and there have been no reports of ships passing by the area.”
Kariolou also explained how “the currents flow from Episkopi in the west to Curium, which means that the only thing that the CTO can do about this specific beach is urge the people using it to respect the environment and the directions of the lifeguards.”
Stuart Bardsley, Spokesman for the SBA, spoke to the Cyprus Mail from the beach itself where he confirmed that “water samples have come back clean.”
He also said that the inspection authorities of the bases had “carried out a thorough investigation of the facilities or other possible sources on the bases, and have made absolute assurances that there has not been an identification of any problem there.”
Bardsley also echoed the description of the Cypriot authorities that the volume of the waste did not amount to anything close to an environmental disaster, but was more appropriately categorised as “isolated environmental pollutions”, and that the SBA maritime authorities were carrying out off-shore inspections to check for further floating feculence.
A fervent opponent of the adulteration of beaches, Kariolou remained adamant that despite the recent dissipation of the problem, the search for the source would continue. He also sought to remind the public that “the cleanliness of the beaches is not represented by the media, but by the colour of the flags that lifeguards choose to fly”.
