Water cuts loom as reserves running low
The possibility of water cuts during the summer is real, as reserves are still low and demand is growing, agriculture ministry permanent secretary Andreas Gregoriou said on Wednesday.
Gregoriou said that cutting water every other day, as press reports suggested, did “not seem reasonable”, but pointed out he was not an expert and could not say for sure.
Explaining the situation, Gregoriou said in 2026 they would give less water than in 2025, but it would be the same allocation as in 2024. However, the demand this year means that available supplies were 10 per cent lower than the actual needs.
Speaking on Trito, Gregoriou said a team had been set up with the participation of the water development department and the district self-government organisations (EOA) to manage available reserves in the best possible manner and avoid protracted water cuts.
The team “will discuss and find solutions on how to implement the decision” to provide less water during the summer.
“We are facing a very difficult year. Such a situation has never arisen before. Despite all the efforts made over the past years with the desalination units and at other levels to restrict the loss of water […] we cannot continue using water the same way at home and at work,” he said.
Efforts were being made, he added, to avoid long water cuts during the summer.
He also defended the environmental fee on water, saying that it was first imposed gradually in 2020, with priority given to big consumers. There are, he added, ways to control fees and regulate their payment in instalments.
As an example, Gregoriou said golf courses using large amounts of recycled water were playing a higher fee, namely 29 cents per tonne.
Gregoriou admitted mistakes were made in implementing the regulation for private boreholes and that the issue would be investigated.
He explained that the regulations came into effect in 2017 in line with EU legislation and that no farmer had been charged the borehole fee.
This year, the state is demanding that the fees be paid retroactively.
“This fee was imposed from 2017 for the water supplied for irrigation from the government waterworks,” he said.
A farmer buying water from the south pipeline is charged 17 cents per cubic metre, 2 cents of which is the environmental fee. “This was implemented in 2017,” Gregoriou said.
“What was not implemented is the fee for the private boreholes,” he added.
“Anyone with a private borehole and a permit to pump up to 500 tonnes per year, does not pay this fee, but anything over that is charged 1 cent in comparison with the 2 cents paid by those purchasing water from government projects,” he explained.
Some already owe tens of thousands of euros and “explanations will be requested”, Gregoriou said.
“Mistakes have been made. They knew beforehand that they had to pay this fee,” he added.
The failure to implement the regulation was pointed out by the Audit Office.
The agriculture ministry met with the farmers’ organisations on Tuesday and on Friday it will meet with the water development department to explain the situation and hear their opinions.