The islands have no more water to give

The islands have no more water to give

The start of the tourist season is approaching, the demand for water is climbing, but the Cycladic reserves cannot keep up.

Nikos Karamanes, general manager of the Municipal Water Supply and Sewerage Company of Paros, loves to guide the visitor through Skada, the system that records consumption and faults in the island’s network in real time from his office.

Paros, although it is a positive exception in the management of its water reserves, is faced with an explosion of water consumption, due to its residential development and over-tourism in the months of July and August.

Karamanes gave some impressive figures for the consumption of water on the island during the two-day “Strategies of transition towards a different development model for Paros and the Cyclades”, held on April 13-14 in Parikia.

The data provided highlight the need to change the development pattern of the island. Indicative:

• To cover the island’s water supply needs, there are currently 28 boreholes with the ability to pump 17,000 cubic meters/day and two desalination units with the ability to produce 3,750 cubic meters/day.

• The total water produced in 2023 was 3,232,533 cubic meters, with 80% covered by the aquifer and 20% by desalination.

• Desalinated water production in 2023 reached 623,000 cubic meters, compared to 127,500 in 2017.

• Water distribution is served by a network of 450 kilometers with 7 pumping stations and 20 reservoirs.

• From 1,400,000 cubic meters/year in 2014, demand jumped in 2023 to 2,300,000 cubic meters/year.

Before Karamanes, the archaeologist Apostolos Papadimitriou, a colleague of Manolis Psarrou who had been brutally attacked in March 2023, had spoken, which has still not been clarified. Papadimitriou noted that in recent years he consulted with his colleagues on 1,001 new building permits, not counting revisions, which he estimated at another 400. Every new building in Paros automatically translates into water consumption corresponding to hundreds of cubic meters per day.

Karamanes estimated that half a million cubic meters of water is available for watering the gardens. This quantity is planned by DEVAP to be made available by tertiary treatment of “grey water” of the sewage system that will be recycled. Until then, it burdens the network.

The Water Director of the South Aegean Region Ilias Nokas emphasized that the legislation evaluates the irrigation of gardens as a priority over the irrigation of agricultural land (tourism-agriculture noted one). Nokas attributed the increase in soil salinity seen in recent years to airborne salt rather than the degradation of water quality directed to irrigation. According to DEVAP, water is drinkable throughout Paros without problems.

“The era of cheap water is over”

In order to meet the increased demand in August, the island will be forced to rent a desalination plant for Eastern Paros (in Kaminaki), with a capacity of 600 cubic meters/day.

“The current level of pumping cannot be increased any more”, emphasized Nokas, who nevertheless added that “the policy of expensive water from desalination is wrong. If DEVAP used 2.5 million cubic meters of desalination per year, it would be burdened with 4 million euros per year. The era of cheap water is over.” But how is it possible to cover the growing demand, if there is no increase in pumping, nor desalination? Nokas proposed the implementation of an old idea of ​​those responsible for water management in the Cyclades: the different, more expensive, pricing of summer consumption, which he asked to be discussed anew.

Nokas, who spoke at the part of the two-day conference that dealt with water management in Paros, emphasized that since 2003 “we haven’t had a single daily rain of 100 millimeters, it’s been consistently pouring 10-20 millimeters a day.” He noted that “dams like those built or intended to be built on the islands in the 1990s can no longer solve the water problem in the Cyclades islands.”

The main aquifer of Paros, that of Naoussa, which is 10 meters above sea level, today gives 80 cubic meters/hour, compared to 220 cubic meters it gave in the mid-1980s. This main aquifer of the island , located on the Marathi-Astera-Naoussa axis, can provide 1.5 million cubic meters per year, while the Dryos in Eastern Paros can provide another 450,000 cubic meters per year.

Nokas revealed that both the District and the municipal corporation are constantly monitoring the water table level. For now, as long as it is high enough above sea level, they can defend the use of drilling. “The municipal business here,” said Nokas, “is ahead of DEYA and the water departments of the municipalities of all the Cyclades. But the end is coming. The island has no more water to give.”

Naxos: need for new desalination plants

And in the neighboring Naxos, they will need to rent three desalination plants in the summer, in order to deal with the water shortage. Due to the drought, the Municipality needs to spend around 2.5 million euros for this year. Of this, 2 million will be given to rent desalination plants for six months and half a million is planned to be given to existing private wells.

However, as the mayor Dimitris Lianos told “Living Cyclades”, the Municipality has a budget of only 540,000 euros per year for investment costs in all the islands under the Municipality of Naxos and Small Cyclades (Naxos, Donoussa, Koufonisia, Schinoussa, Heraklia).

Lianos is looking for the funds, but the amount to cover the expense has not yet been found. According to information from “Living Cyclades”, the Ministry of the Interior has asked the authorities of the islands to describe the problem each will face, in order to decide where to give money.

A possible solution is the transfer of water from Apeiranthos, Filoti and other mountain villages that have a surplus. However, Naxos is among the islands that, while they have water in the mountains, do not have a water supply network to take it to the country, so thousands of cubic meters are left to end up in the sea. Some of these stocks could be transported by tanker to the western side of the island, but in smaller volumes and at a higher cost compared to pipeline transport. In addition, the island suffers in water “governance”, i.e. it does not have an effective water company.

The “originality” of Syros

The policy of expensive desalinated water is not only a problem for municipal water companies, which have to find the funds. An example from Syros shows that it also favors the perpetuation of illegal pumping, which damages the water table and the environment.

Traditionally the island was not able to serve the water demand. So private networks began to develop, illegally selling the public good. But even when Syros expanded the local water supply network with desalination, the private network still remained more profitable, as it was cheaper than the municipal water. The Syrian Environmental Quality Observatory filed a lawsuit a few days ago for the continuation of the operation of the private network, which in the meantime has also laid pipes on the island.

“We collected a lot of evidence”, reports the Observatory, “and we addressed all the competent bodies, submitting evidentiary documentation and requesting the implementation of the existing institutional framework, i.e. their competent intervention in order to stop the illegal and completely uncontrolled extraction and distribution of the -sold by private water company. From the summer of 2022 until today, our documented complaints have been treated to a greater or lesser extent with indifference, evasion and/or disclaimer of responsibility by the relevant bodies. Today, however, we are not at the same point as in 2022. With the documented wording to the competent agencies of the requirement to take measures in order to ensure compliance with the current legislation and legal management of the waters with the aim of protecting them, we succeeded in de-watering part of the networks, which was installed in the onshore zone of the port and served to supply tankers and ships with the illegally pumped transported and sold water”.

The oxymoron is that Syrians who get water from the private network prefer the municipal company for sewage.