Officials on Tuesday sought to provide assurances that they have a ‘Plan B’ to deal with water scarcity this coming summer, although parliamentarians were not convinced.
Permanent secretary at the agriculture ministry Andreas Gregoriou told the Cyprus News Agency that the Water Development Department (WDD) is gaming out “alternative scenarios” for the remainder of the year – including for peak water consumption during the summer months.
He was referring to Paphos district specifically, after a desalination plant at Kouklia was taken offline due to fire damage, but also more recently the necessary draining of the Mavrokolympos reservoir after a leak.
The same issue came up at the House agriculture committee. After the session, Akel MP Andreas Fakondis called “dramatic” the water situation in Paphos.
“I want to say that today we heard no solutions, no strategy, and no comprehensive plan for tackling the water supply problem in Paphos following the destruction of the desalination unit and what happened at the [Mavrokolympos] dam.”
Under the plan, Gregoriou said, reduced water quantities would be made available for irrigation – for permanent tree crops as well as for farmers growing seasonal crops.
The water management options are based on available reserves in the dams, making use of recovered water, and tapping unused boreholes.
The operator of the Kouklia desalination plant has said the facility should be back up and running by August.
Regarding the mobile desalination plant at Kissonerga, Gregoriou said a tender was put out on January 29 and the bids are expected to be received by March 3. The tender stipulates delivery of the project in four to seven months – with a bonus given to the contractor if completed earlier than the seven months.
As for the Mavrokolympos dam, he said works have started there, supervised by experts and engineers from the WDD and Tepak (University of Technology). After the draining of the reservoir, the mud has to be dealt with.
Asked about the banana farmers in Paphos, Gregoriou promised they would get allocated “adequate” quantities of water to preserve their crops.
“They will have less output and/or quality, but their banana plantations won’t dry up.”
The Mavrokolympos reservoir was built for the irrigation of banana plantations in the area. It has a capacity of 2.18 million cubic metres and consists of the Mavrokolympos river and an artificial lake.
The best-case scenario for the desalination plant of August to September, “doesn’t satisfy us as the needs start far earlier than that, from the beginning of the summer tourist season,” Fakondis said.
On the Mavrokolympos reservoir, he said, MPs got no firm answers on when exactly it would be repaired.
“In addition, we’ve heard of no scheme to compensate farmers for loss of revenue due to reduced irrigation.”
He added: “It seems we’re going to experience a dramatic summer, both in terms of water supply and irrigation. So we’re sounding the alarm, calling on the agriculture ministry to assume its responsibilities.”
The deputy director of the WDD recently revealed that reservoir levels stood at just 26 per cent as of January 31 – an extremely low figure due to the second consecutive year of drought.
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