A Looming Threat for the Greek Isles

 

Saturday––Jeff

“The combination of increased water consumption and prolonged drought is depleting resources in the Cyclades.”

That’s the headline of an in-depth investigative report by environmental reporter Giorgos Lialios, published yesterday in Ekathimerini, Greece’s newspaper of record.  It’s a subject I’ve observed firsthand for over a decade and listened even longer to locals openly worry over.  

What follows is Mr Lialios’ report.  The words are all his, not mine, but I know many of the islands mentioned well (no pun intended), what with my wife and I spending much time on many of them and my setting a half-dozen of my books on those islands.  I take his article as a call to action. We shall see.

Year after year, the pressure increases. On the one hand, there is the explosive growth of tourism, followed by an increase in consumption; on the other, there is drought. The small Aegean islands are preparing for the start of the tourist season with their reservoirs empty, their boreholes pumping brackish water, and an increasing dependence on desalination. The first victim of this difficult situation is what agricultural production is left on the islands, according to the doctrine of “water for the people first and then everything else.”

In 2023, rainfall in the Aegean will be limited for a third consecutive year. “Especially in the Cyclades and southern Crete, which are the areas with the least rainfall, 2023 was a bad year,” explains Kostas Lagouvardos, meteorologist and research director at the National Observatory of Athens. “The last good year for the Aegean was 2019, with a lot of rain in the east and south. Since then, rainfall has been below average. Especially in the Cyclades, where the rainy season lasts only five or six months, it only takes two bad years to create a problem.” In 2023 Andros received 363 millimeters of rain, compared to an average of 506 mm, Tinos received 299 mm, compared to an average of 330 mm, Naxos received 270 mm, compared to an average of 306 mm, and Ios received 195 mm, compared to an average of 285 mm. 

As a result, the Aegean islands are preparing for a difficult year. “The reservoirs on the islands are empty. Many islands will have problems this year. And the first victims will be crop growers and livestock breeders. If it doesn’t rain, there is no vegetation, so the farmer has to buy fodder. Last year the farmers of Naxos bought bales of clover from Bulgaria,” explains Ilias Nokas, head of the Directorate of South Aegean Water at the Decentralized Administration of the Aegean.

“Naxos has two dams. Last year they had 375,000 cubic meters of water, this year they have 30,000 cubic meters of water,” says Dimitris Lianos, mayor of the island. “We’re going to struggle this year. It’s not just tourism that’s important to us, but also agriculture and livestock farming. The first to be affected are the farmers. Potato farmers are already thinking of not planting this year because they will not be able to water their crops. It will be a difficult year for everyone. However, compared to most of the Cyclades islands, Naxos is still in a better position. “The island has water, we have two boreholes at a depth of 171 meters with very good quality water and the level has not dropped. What the island needs is a master plan for water supply. Unfortunately, because of localism, we cannot make more rational use of the water supply – some villages exploit springs and do not allow others to be supplied with water. The town of Naxos now has a desalination plant. We also need irrigation networks and targeted policies for farmers and livestock farmers so that they do not give up; the primary sector is our added value.”

Mykonos

On islands where meeting the needs of tourism is the only priority, empty reservoirs aggravate an already difficult situation. Mykonos is a typical example. “The Municipal Water Supply and Sewerage Company of Mykonos has two dams and two desalination plants to supply water to the island,” explains the company’s chairman, Dimitris Lazaridis. “The Marathi dam, with a capacity of 3 million cubic meters, and the Ano Mera dam, with a capacity of 1 million cubic meters, are almost empty due to the continuous drought, and they are not being used.”

Drought is not the only problem. The Aegean islands have seen a surge in tourism in recent years, with a corresponding increase in water consumption. A typical example of the gradual increase in water consumption is the arid island of Santorini. According to data from the Municipal Enterprise for Water Supply and Sewerage (DEYA) of Thera, a decade ago (2013), water consumption on the island reached about 929,000 cubic meters. In 2023, it reached 2.36 million cubic meters of water (an increase of 13.8% compared to the previous year).

The huge increase in consumption is also reflected in the other “flagship” of the Cyclades, Mykonos.

According to data from the Mykonos DEYA, the consumption of water in 2020 (year of quarantine) was 955,505 cubic meters, in 2021 it increased to 1,174,254 cubic meters (+22.9%), in 2022 to 1,513,068 cubic meters (+28.8%), and reached 1,618,069 cubic meters in 2023 (+7%). In other words, if we consider that 2020 was not an ordinary year due to Covid-19, water consumption on Mykonos will increase by 37.8% in two years (from 2021 to 2023). “Moreover, the DEYA data does not reflect the whole picture, as 40% of the island is not covered by the water supply network. The total water consumption of the island is estimated at 2.5-3 million cubic meters per year,” Nokas said. “Like many islands, Mykonos is a place where people build where they want and then meet their needs either with private boreholes – which are overpumped, resulting in poor quality water – or by buying water. However, the increase in consumption also affects the areas that have networks because they are not properly designed. On Mykonos, for example, the network was originally built to serve only Hora, the island capital, and now supports all the outlying areas without any specifications. The island’s biological treatment plant, which was designed for a population equivalent of 50,000 and serves over 100,000 in the summer, has a similar problem. Everything is operating at capacity.”

Challenges

The administrative structure – i.e. the division of responsibilities for water – does not help the situation. Water management on the Greek islands is governed by a complex and deficient system. In the most organized cases, there is a municipal water and sewerage company responsible for the network and water production. In the less organized cases, the water is managed by an agency within the local municipality. The licensing and control of private wells, either for water supply or irrigation, drilled outside the network, is the responsibility of the water directorates of the decentralized administrations, where one or two people are called upon to manage everything. Finally, the regions have water management departments that deal with inspections and complaints.

“When it comes to water consumption, tourism has the last word,” says Nokas. Desalination is not enough. In Ermoupoli, on the island of Syros, when the first plant was built, it had a capacity of 1,200 cubic meters, and today it has reached 5,000 cubic meters, and it is still not enough. Moreover, with the increase in energy costs, the island’s DEYA, which a few years ago had a reserve of 1 million euros, is now 5 million euros in the red, which it cannot pass on to the water bills, since water is already very expensive. According to the Ministry of the Environment and Energy, there are currently 31 desalination plants in operation in the Cyclades and another 15 in the Dodecanese.

Illegal drilling

The problems are not confined to the Cyclades. On Skiathos, which is supplied exclusively by boreholes, the underground water level is falling every year. “The peculiarity of Skiathos is that we have water, the island is self-sufficient. The town of Skiathos is supplied by five municipal wells, while hotels and private individuals on the island have their own wells. In addition, since the water from the central well is no longer potable, we have installed 25 public taps in the town with potable water from another source,” says Ioannis Sarris, director of the Skiathos DEYA.

“The DEYA has no authority to license or control the wells. It has no idea what quantities are being pumped. We have done the best we can – in recent years we have replaced almost the entire internal water supply network and significantly reduced losses. What worries us is that every year the level of the water in the boreholes goes down, and the reserves tend to go down. At the same time, actual consumption is increasing due to tourism. A serious problem is illegal drilling – on Skiathos we have more than 2,000 illegal boreholes. In my opinion, especially on islands where the water comes from an enclosed area, the water should be controlled by the community as a whole and not piecemeal.” According to the Department of Hydroeconomics of the Regional Unit of Magnesia and the Sporades, 238 applications for private wells have been submitted for Skiathos, 11 for Skopelos and five for Alonissos.

“Our island has the peculiarity of being big and small at the same time,” notes Kalymnos Mayor Yannis Mastrokoukos. “Although we are small in area, we have a permanent population of 17,000. This means that we have a significant demand for water throughout the year. It’s not just about tourism, as our own attitude toward water has changed: in terms of using it for cleaning, watering gardens, filling swimming pools… things that were unthinkable two generations ago, when people had learned to live with much less water.” The island is currently supplied mainly by boreholes, and there is a desalination plant for the northern part of the island which is popular with tourists.

He concludes: “The underground reserves are running out and we are now forced to turn to desalination as well. There is already a tender being prepared, funded by the Ministry of the Interior, for the supply of three small desalination plants and another by the Regional Authority of the South Aegean for a large plant for the town of Kalymnos. Of course, desalination is not a panacea. Ideally, if we could expand the use of renewables to meet the demand and make up for grid leakage, it would be more viable as an option.” 

Let’s see what happens.

 

––Jeff

Cape Town water situation

Stanley - Thursday

Given the near disaster that befell Cape Town in the first quarter of 2018, I'm frequently asked by friends in the USA and Europe what the current water situation is in Cape Town.

You may remember in January 2018, the city of Cape Town announced that it had 90 days of water left, that it would run out of water on April 12 - Day Zero. The announcement shocked the world - how could a major city run out of water? 

What had led to the situation was several years of insipid rainfall, leaving the feeder dams much lower than usual. In addition, the population of Cape Town was growing well beyond the existing infrastructure.

Theewaterskloof Dam - Cape Town's largest - in March 2018

Capetonians queue for spring water in 2018.

The city put in place severe restrictions on water use, both personal and commercial. It also hiked the price of water, and unleashed a huge conservation publicity drive. All of this helped push Day Zero back into the rainy season. And fortunately it did rain, avoiding a disaster.

I can't speak for other Capetonians, but I know I still practice many of the conservation measures of those dire times. I wet myself in the shower, turn the water off, soap, and then rinse. In and out in less than ninety seconds. I never let the water run while brushing my teeth and still have a small bucket in the kitchen sink to catch water that I later use to water the plants. However, I have given up my practice of standing in a bucket in the shower to catch water to use to flush the toilet.

So what is the current status?

The two lowest points in the graph above show that Cape Town's dams dropped to 20% capacity in 2017 and 2018. There was very little rain in winter 2017. Today we are a little below average capacity.

This graph shows that, relative to the past 5 years, we are in better shape (black dotted line). Vertical axis is volume; horizontal axis is week number. 

The prognosis for next summer - the dry season - depends a lot on what June, July, and August bring, as these are the three rainiest months. If we have average rain, next year should be fine. If we have no rain, we will be in trouble again.

The good news is that it is raining quite heavily in the Cape Town area right now and there has been snow on the mountains - not on Table Mountain, however. That will definitely help the dam levels. 

Beautiful sight

This could be the first time she's seen snow!

This could be the first time it's seen snow!

So I am feeling cautiously optimistic about 2021. Cross fingers.

Notes from Cape Town

Stanley – Thursday

I have been in Cape Town for three weeks now, nestled between Lion’s Head mountain and the Atlantic Ocean. It is a gorgeous spot.

However, the time has been far from predictable, far from serene. For the most part, I have felt discombobulated most of the time.

Number 1: my flat

Last year Mette and I split our two-level flat and sold the top half. We then decided to renovate the lower half, adding a small bedroom to make it a two-bedroom apartment. As usual, I forgot about the universal law of cussedness and underestimated the amount of work. I expected, for example, that I had enough spare tiles to accommodate the very small extension I was making – about 4 square metres. Wrong! This small extension not only required tiles for the inside, but also for one long row outside to ensure the flat below didn’t get soaked when it rained.

Of course, there were no tiles to be found that matched. The whole frigging floor had to be lifted. The neighbours weren’t happy with the banging and chiseling.

Awaiting a new floor and windows. But what a view!

I wanted to add a small shower to the existing guest toilet. Access to plumbing infrastructure meant that the shower couldn’t be where I originally planned. The new location was where the door opened, so I had to replace the swinging door with a pocket door. Down came the wall with associated noise. The neighbours were even less happy.

The new guest bathroom

To accommodate the second bedroom, I had to move the kitchen and extend a wall. More banging.

The guest bedroom is behind that wall. 

And then, thinking that the deconstruction had finished and with it the noise, I discovered that the new design require extensive work by plumber and electrician to accommodate the new pipes and wires. Angle grinders, here we come. Arriving at the same time, was one of my neighbours who had not yet learnt to ignore noise. Her visit added to the noise.

In general, the contractors have been very good, working quickly, but not always letting me know when noise was planned. I send out emails almost every day with information what to expect. Turns out this attempt at transparency has its negative side, because when I say it will be a quiet day and it’s not, I get shouted at.

The upside is that the whole renovation SHOULD be finished by the end of March, resulting (hopefully) in a gorgeous flat overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Right now, however, it is a mess.

2. Load shedding

As you’ve read from posts by Michael and myself over the past years, South Africa is suffering from the aftereffects of enormous corruption by our previous president and his cronies. In fact, one family, the Guptas from India, basically tried to take over the country making it, like King Leopold did ith the Congo, their own private estate. Fortunately, they did not succeed, but left the country robbed of billions of rands.

The national electricity company, ESKOM, both through corrupt tender processes and total incompetence, now doesn’t have the capacity to supply the whole country with electricity at the same time. So everyone has to enjoy load shedding. At the least punitive, this means that for several hours a day, there is no power. The only good thing is that the timing is usually known in advance.

My flat during load-shedding

I had forgotten about load-shedding, which I last experienced several years ago, so I was ill-prepared, especially as I am not in my own flat. When the lights went out the first evening, I had the light on my iPhone, and that was it. Not conducive to doing anything. Now I am better prepared with solar lights and torches, but I can’t imagine the damage it is doing to small businesses that usually don’t have the ability to have their own private generators.

And all of this at a time when the economy needs all the help it can get. Sigh.

3. The weather

As reported a few weeks ago (The Cape Doctor), we have had some ferocious winds recently, which is not good, but also some unseasonal rain, which is good.

And they say Chicago is the windy city!

4. The water crisis

Fortunately, last year’s rainy season was good, so going from a total water crisis, the city is slowly getting back on its feet. The dams now average about 70% full, which is encouraging, as long as the next rainy season is also good. However, water restrictions still apply, although relaxed to 105 litres of water per person per day.

5. My golf.

Awful.

6. The future

Despite all of this, the city remains gorgeous. And I have something very exciting to look forward to towards the end of March. On Sunday evenings throughout summer, there are concerts on the lawns of the national botanical gardens, Kirstenbosch. With Table Mountain in the background, they are very special.

Kirstenbosch Summer Concert

On March 22^nd, one of my favorite sopranos, Pumeza Matshikiza, will be performing. She is a wonderful singer who hails from an extremely poor background here in South Africa. Listen to her story here (2 minutes). I can’t wait.

Pumeza

Mykonos: Shame on You.

Mykonos reservoir about to run dry. More photos below.

A half-dozen years ago, one of the fictional characters in my debut novel, Murder in Mykonos, said, “I’m like a Mykonian: I’m used to living in a bordello—filled with police.”

Just the other day I heard a Mykonian say, “Mykonos is a brothel run by police.”

I guess you could call that evolution.

Frankly, I’m not sure who’s running it now.  Certainly not its elected officials.  The new mayor does not take office until September, so none of what I’m about to say is directed at him, except of course to point out what I trust he already knows: Mykonos is in desperate need of order.

Those with influence build as they wish wherever they want—beaches and building codes be damned; all drive and park with reckless disregard for each other and pedestrians; garbage and construction materials are dumped with impunity wherever convenient; noise regulations are disregarded if it stands to make the right folks money; and municipal licensing and tax laws selectively ignored or unenforced.

And why, pray tell, is all this done?

For the benefit of the tourists is the answer, or rather the benefit of those who profit off their presence—for one could hardly say the lack of pedestrian walkways, taxis, and public bus transportation benefits tourists.

Yet, it’s incontrovertible that tourists love it here.  At least a certain kind of tourist does. Why wouldn’t they?  Amid its beautiful beaches, heavenly weather, and pristine sea they can behave in a manner utterly unthinkable back home, for Mykonos has evolved into a place where rules are not enforced nor statistics made public that might shock some into clearer thinking on the downsides of unfettered personal freedom amid a place literally immersed in natural (and artificial) intoxicants.

It’s a three-month open party. One that Mykonians once treated as a harmless tourist tsunami—sweeping in each June and receding by September—providing what they needed to keep their treasured island alive for the balance of the year. But the tsunami now carries away far more than it contributes, draining away the very spirit and identity of the island.

It is a place for profiteers unconcerned with the long-term health of the island. The businessman who avoids paying the fees and taxes he legitimately owes is not a colorful character beating the system, he’s a villain wrecking the future of every Mykonian child in the island’s underfunded schools, damaging the year-round quality of life for every Mykonian who must suffer with bad roads, understaffed public health facilities, and garbage polluting every vista, every nostril, every day. 

And it is a place where thousands of fish are about to die as one of its two municipal reservoirs runs dry because of poor municipal planning.  There is an old adage that “a fish stinks from the head down.” In this case I think there are thousands of heads to blame.

Views from the southern foot of the reservoir moving north.

All that's left.

Welcome to September, Mr. Mayor, we’re all rooting for you.

Jeff—Saturday

PS. Happy Birthday, Barbara my love.