Progress is being made to use more of the recycled water produced by water treatment plants, the water development department said on Thursday.  The department pointed out that between 2020 and 2023, the amount of recycled water deposited into the sea per year fell from 4.7 million cubic metres to 1.45 million cubic metres – a drop of almost two thirds.  It said it is working “with the aim of utilising every last drop of recycled water”, and as such has planned to create storage areas and wider pipeline networks to allow for a greater distribution of recycled water.  It added that around 90 per cent of recycled wastewater is now available for irrigation purposes, and that this figure is “by far the largest in the European Union and one of the largest in the world”.  The remaining 10 per cent, it added, “cannot be made available because during the winter months, irrigation needs are limited, resulting in no demand for this water”.  It also sought to explain the criticism levelled at it following the submission of an audit office report into Cyprus’ water usage saying that the fact that only 52.3 per cent of the island’s recycled water capacity is utilised.  This figure, it said, is in part a product of infrastructure being created with the future in mind. It said water treatment plants “have been built to serve maximum demand”, and that as such, given fluctuations in water use, that maximum demand is not always fulfilled.  The report did, however, write that “a large part of the recycled water remains unused or is discarded”.  The report’s submission came shortly after coastal engineer Xenia Loizidou had slammed the government’s plan to import mobile desalination plants from the United Arab Emirates to solve Cyprus’ water shortage as an “incoherent panic solution”. She said the units are “of course a solution”, but that “to really solve the water problem, the first thing which needs to be done is to invest in infrastructure and proper management of uses”.  This, she said, must entail there being “no lawns and golf courses” and an “adaptation” of crops to plant those which are less water intensive.  “The desalination units which will come … will altogether produce only 5.5 million cubic metres of water, and at a cost. I wonder why the 10 million cubic metres of treated water available from the wastewater treatment plant in Mia Milia is not an option, and why, for political or other reasons, what the bicommunal technical committee on the environment has been calling for years is not progressing,” she said.  On the matter of water security itself, she said the water development department had as early as 2008 prepared a study on Cyprus’ infrastructure, with the aim of preventing the island from being “dependent on weather conditions” for its water supply.  However, she said, “since then, much has been announced, little has been done”. (ICE BEIRUT)

Fonte notizia: Cyprus Mail