While the State requires coastal private enterprises to manage their urban wastewater in such a way as to prevent its discharge into the sea, the competent authority for the protection of the marine environment, the Department of Fisheries and Marine Research, does not take any measures to manage wastewater in the fishing shelter of the Kato Pyrgos community.

This was stated by the Department of the Environment after an appropriate inspection.

Three samples of seawater were taken during the investigation. The results of the analysis disappointed the agency. As it turned out, in places of high concentration of tourist sites, as well as in front of the Pyrgos Tellyria Health Center, an increased content of organic substances in the water was detected.

During the visit, a fishing shelter was inspected, which houses two underground sewage tanks with a capacity of 10 square meters each. According to Kato Pyrgos, an employee of the public council, these two reservoirs are part of an old biological station that was built by the Department of Fisheries and Marine Research several years ago, but has never worked. In addition, a coastal police building was built on the territory of the fishing shelter by the Department of Public Works, designed to discharge urban wastewater into two underground reservoirs.

On the day of the visit of representatives of the Department of the Environment, the leader of the Kato Pyrgos community, Nikos Kleantos, stated that over the past seven years, while he was the leader of the community, the reservoirs in question had never been emptied. Taking into account this information, there is reason to suspect that urban wastewater is leaking from these reservoirs, which enter the pool of the fishing shelter. In addition, the community leader stressed the need to build a sewage system, since the cost of collecting and transporting liquid waste (municipal wastewater) from the tourist accommodation to the licensed municipal sewage treatment plant in Paphos, it is huge and the operators cannot cope financially.

In addition to the above, it was found that the municipal wastewater of the Kato Pyrgos Gymnasium-Lyceum falls into a “dry” pit with a capacity of about 20 sq.m. which is emptied about once a year. This fact gives rise to reasonable suspicions that there is a leakage of urban wastewater into the sea and from there. The same applies to wastewater from the medical center, which falls into two absorption pits located at the back of the building and which have never been emptied.

It is noted that six cases of rashes in children after swimming in the sea in the hotel area have been recorded recently during the week, without confirming, but also without excluding the possibility that this was due to leakage of urban wastewater into the sea.

As part of the investigation of the relevant complaints filed with the Department of the Environment, the department’s staff inspected the places adjacent to the coastline. Hotel and restaurant operators in the area have been asked to provide relevant evidence of municipal wastewater collection from licensed collectors/managers of this waste. Most of them were unable to provide evidence of the delivery of municipal wastewater to a licensed collector carrier.

A source: philenews.com

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