By Martin Hellicar
RED TAPE is holding up the creation of much needed sewage treatment systems for rural communities, the House health committee heard yesterday.
Other stumbling blocks are high costs, the fact that no-one wants a sewage plant in their back yard, public scepticism about the acceptability of treated water and uncooperative village authorities, deputies were told.
On hearing that the cost of a sewage farm to serve four villages would come to almost £5 million, Diko deputy Marios Matsakis commented: “It would be better to put them (the villagers) up at the Hilton suite.”
Concerned about the health risk posed by the absence of treatment systems in many villages, the committee called government experts to give an account of what the state was doing to remedy the situation.
Plans for biological or other treatment works for villages are ready for execution but the need for feasibility studies for all such systems is delaying implementation, deputies were told.
A May 1997 cabinet decision made feasibility studies a pre-requisite for all sewage treatment systems. The first step for such a study involves getting detailed land ownership information from the Lands & Survey department, which, the government representatives said, tended to take some time.
Many villages sited on impervious rocks are facing serious pollution problems from overflowing traditional cess-pits, while in other villages such soak-aways are polluting water sources, deputies noted.
The Water development department representative, Vania Zachariou, said soak- aways were none the less often the most feasible short-term solution where underlying layers allowed seepage and no water sources were affected. “It costs much less to create a new cess-pit or clean out an existing one every five years than it does to maintain a treatment plant every year,” she said.
Sewage plant maintenance costs £10,000 to £20,000 a year, she said.
In the long term, Zachariou said, the government wanted sewage treatment plants for all villages and EU funding would be sought for this.
Argyris Papanastasiou, of the Nicosia District office, said funding and red tape were not the only problem.
“We send village authorities questionnaires about their sewage treatment problems and they just don’t send them back, even though they know they have problems,” Papanastasiou said.
“Also, many communities just don’t want treatment plants anywhere near them.”
Zachariou added that it was often hard to find an outlet for the water produced by a treatment plant. Farmers were loathe to use treated water on their fields and getting permission to release the water in river beds could also be problematic, she said.
There are currently 42 sewage treatment systems in operation on the island.
