Cyprus: Floating desalination plant coming to Limassol

Following 8th January’s news that a desalination plant was under construction in the Kouklia area of Paphos, it has just been announced that the Cyprus Ministry of Agriculture plans to build a floating desalination plant off the Germasogia coast at Limassol.

Throughout the past summer Limassol, which is on the south coast of Cyprus, was totally dependent for its drinking water on supplies brought in by tankers from Greece.

The plan for the desalination plant will be presented to Parliament today and, according to the Cyprus Mail, it will be constructed using the infrastructure put in place to receive the water from Greece.

If everything goes according to plan, the plant will come on-line in June and will produce between 20,000m3 and 50,000m3 of water a day for the following five years. After that, the permanent desalination planned for Episkopi will take over.

But desalination plants are not without their critics. According to environmental engineer Michalis Loizides, although desalination plants may seem the ideal solution, future generations may be forced to pay for the mishaps of an irresponsible policy which successive governments have promoted.

He said “Desalination is so energy consuming, that for each ton of water purified, three litres of petrol are used. We have committed to limiting our CO2 emissions to the EU. With the planned creation of the two desalination plants in Limassol and Paphos, as well as the desalination facilities for future golf courses, we will be hit with a fine of around €100 million” adding that this was an example of appalling planning by the government.

He went on to say that with the taxpayer footing the bill for any fines imposed by the EU, “people with no vested interests could actually end up subsidising the building of golf courses“.