The conclusive results of a scientific study lend credence to residents’ protests against the operation of an asphalt plant in their area, Dali mayor Leontios Kallenos said on Tuesday.

The communities felt vindicated by the results of the study that has been made public and was sent to President Nikos Christodoulides for review, the mayor told CyBC.

“Since we were accused of protesting for political aims, and our daily lived experience of the pollution was not enough for some, we felt we needed to commission a solid study in response to the technocrats,” Kallenos said, intimating that official authorities ought to have commissioned such a study in the first place.

Among other indisputable findings, the research shows that topographically the placement of the plant below the height of residences leads to pollution from smokestacks that are not high enough and that a blow-back phenomenon due to humidity, heat, and the area’s wind patterns, causes accumulation of smog in the morning hours.

“The only way this can now be ignored [by the state] is by illegal action,” the Dali mayor said, adding he hoped this would finally cut through the problem which had become a “Gordian knot” for all involved.

The ongoing contentious issue of re-location of the asphalt plant gained momentum last year when 13 of the area’s municipalities banded together in protest. The works are currently under a court-ordered hiatus pending the results of the court case brought by the communities.

The mayor said the communities were ready to band together again, should this, their latest bid for environmental justice be ignored.