Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou visited Patmos and Leros yesterday, Tuesday 20 October, accompanied by New Democracy MPs for the Dodecanese Giannis Pappas and Tsambika (Mika) Iatridi, the mayors of Patmos, Nikitas Tsampalakis, and Leros, Timotheos Kottakis, and Petros Varelidis, secretary-general for Natural Environment and Water at the Ministry of Environment and Energy.
In Patmos, he attended the opening of a desalination plant at Kampos with a capacity of 600 cubic metres a day, which will strengthen the island’s water supply security.
Plans are also under way to secure further funding to boost water supplies to parts of the island through additional desalination capacity, meeting higher summer demand, and to provide sewerage for settlements in Kampos and Grikos.
He then travelled to Leros, where he was briefed on and saw first-hand key projects to create an integrated water supply system for the island, with a capacity of 3,000 cubic metres a day and including a 17km water pipeline. The projects, funded by the Ministry of Environment and Energy with €5.3 million, aim to definitively address water scarcity.
The delegation also visited the “Landfill and Biodegradable Waste Treatment Facility” being built on Leros, with a budget of €4.7 million and funding from the NSRF programme.
The project addresses the problem of waste management and meets the need to comply with rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
After the opening of the new desalination plant in Patmos, Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou said:
“We are here, in a place of global spiritual and cultural significance, to open the new desalination plant, with a capacity of 600 cubic metres a day, funded by the Ministry of Environment and Energy.
It is tangible proof of what can be achieved when the state, local authorities, the region, local MPs and public services work together.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s policy is to provide practical support for life on the islands. Among other things, this is being done through two dedicated funding instruments that have been established: Greco Islands and the Islands Decarbonisation Fund.
With €2.3 billion in funding from this fund, we will give our islands the means to carry out major projects to upgrade their energy systems, including energy storage, electricity interconnections, renewables and electromobility, so that we can provide practical help to islanders.
In Leros, we have already carried out three desalination projects, with the aim, as in Patmos, of addressing the Europe-wide water challenge comprehensively.
That is why, for the first time, we have a National Water Strategy.
Water is recognised as a strategic national resource and a matter of national security.
The desalination plants and sewerage projects under way are significantly improving people’s quality of life”.
Patmos Mayor Nikitas Tsampalakis said:
“I would like to express my warm thanks to Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou for visiting the island and opening the desalination plant at Kampos.
We also have a special relationship with the minister because, you could say, he has now “adopted” our island.
Let me tell you a little about what we have achieved together.
Thanks to a legislative provision introduced by the minister, we are now pleased to have signed a programme agreement with the region and Giorgos Hatzimarkos to fulfil the dream of the children of our island: an indoor sports hall.
We also funded the restoration of the former uncontrolled dumpsites.
It is a very important environmental project.
The ministry will move forward with funding for a desalination plant in Grikos.
We will also fund sewerage in Kampos through Greco Islands.
Another very important project, the Grikos sewerage system, will be advanced through the Ministry of Environment and Energy’s National Development Programme, with co-funding from the South Aegean Region.
We are planning three additional funding allocations for three very important projects for Patmos”.
Leros Mayor Timotheos Kottakis said:
“Minister, the whole community of Leros, my colleagues and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts for funding two major projects.
The comprehensive solution to the major problem of water scarcity, with three desalination units, each with a capacity of 1,000 cubic metres, and the construction of a 17.4-kilometre main water pipeline worth €5 million.
Another equally major environmental problem is waste, which you have also addressed comprehensively through the construction, already under way, of a landfill for residual waste and a biomass processing facility, at a total cost of €4.7 million”.