http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=289062&version=1&template_id=46&parent_id=26
Water for peace' in the pipeline Jasper Mortimer/Ankara A water reservoir in Cyprus It should be straightforward: the Turks have an abundance of water, the Cypriots have a sustained drought, the answer is to lay a pipeline across the seabed and pump fresh water from southern Turkey to north Cyprus. But nothing is straightforward between two states that have been at loggerheads for decades. On the north side of Cyprus, Turkish Cypriots want the pipeline to be built, but don't have the money. They look to Turkey to finance it, and would like to sell the surplus water to Greek Cypriots. On the south side of Cyprus, a Greek Cypriot entrepreneur believes the money can be raised, but his government refuses to buy water from Turkey until it withdraws the 40,000 troops that have been stationed in northern Cyprus since 1974. The idea of bringing Turkish water to Cyprus is an old one. In the late 1990s, tugboats used to tow gigantic bags of water across the sea. But the bags kept on being punctured en route and the Turkish water would arrive contaminated by seawater. The pipeline plan has become increasingly attractive as successive droughts have forced Cypriots to resort to high-cost measures, such as desalinating seawater or shipping fresh water from Greece. Pipeline water is estimated to be much cheaper than desalinated or shipped water. The economic advantages have led to the pipeline's being floated as an incentive for reconciliation between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The Greek Cypriot advocate of the scheme, Nicos Vassiliou, says it could be called the "Water for Peace" pipeline. Politics rules out such co-operation in the short term. President Demetris Christofias, who leads the Greek Cypriots, has met his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mehmet Ali Talat almost every week since early September. They are negotiating to re-unite the island. The UN envoy who is hosting the talks, Alexander Downer, has reported that Christofias and Talat are making "steady progress," and press reports confirm this. But it would be unwise to predict success, particularly as the two communities have to vote on a settlement. In 2004, Turkish Cypriots accepted a UN-brokered plan for reunification, but Greek Cypriots rejected it. The pipeline itself would be a feat of engineering. It would cross 42 miles of sea in an earthquake zone where the seabed has cliffs and valleys that plunge to extreme depths. A Turkish engineering team has been conducting a feasibility study for the State Water Works. The project manager, Mehmet Halil Tuna of the Istanbul-based firm Alarko, believes the answer to the rugged seabed is to suspend the pipeline from buoys at a depth of about 250m. "It is feasible to build a pipeline from Turkey to Cyprus," Tuna said in an e-mail, declining a free-ranging interview because the feasibility study is not finished. While many have said such a pipeline is possible, Tuna's team is the only one to have investigated the problems. Alarko has spent three years carrying out seabed surveys, risk assessments and laboratory tests. Tuna's route for the pipeline is from the southern Turkish resort of Anamur to a northern Cypriot village called Guzelyali in Turkish and Vassilia in Greek. The advantage of Anamur is not just that it is the point of Turkey closest to Cyprus; it is the mouth of the Dragon river, also called Anamur Cayi, whose water would flow into the pipeline. Tuna said the pipeline and related infrastructure, such as a dam on the Dragon, would take three to four years to build. He refused to give the estimated cost until the feasibility study is issued at the end of June. But an undersecretary in the Turkish Cypriot environment ministry, Durali Elal, said the pipeline would cost between $400mn - $450mn and $450mn (303 to 341mn euros). Elal added that Turkish Cyprus does not have the resources to finance the pipeline, and Turkey would decide on the construction and tendering process. The pipeline would deliver about 75mn cubic metres of water a year, which would "easily meet Turkish Cypriot water needs," Elal said. "If there is the demand, we could consider providing water for our neighbours as well," he said, referring to Greek Cypriots. Cyprus has been running short of water in summertime for many years, but the culmination of four droughts in a row brought the island to its knees last year. In the Turkish-speaking north, the people survived by a combination of water rationing and desalinating seawater. In the Greek-speaking south, where three-quarters of the island's onemn people live, residents of Nicosia had running water for only three days a week for 12-hour periods. "The dams that could supply the cities with water were down to 3%," said senior officer Kyriacos Kyrou of the Water Development Department in a phone interview. Some dams were empty, "no water at all - not even enough water for the fish." The government took the unprecedented step of shipping water from Greece. In a nine and a half month operation that began in July, 8mn cubic metres of water was brought by tanker ship to the southern port of Limassol. Cyprus paid Greece about 5mn euros for the water, but it had to pay shipping fees of 35mn euros and approximately 1.5mn euros for the paperwork and incidentals, making for a total of 41.5mn euros, Kyrou said. "The cost of water from Greece is definitely prohibitive," Kyrou said. "We're not going to do it again." The arithmetic meant that 1 cubic metre of shipped water cost 5.2 euros (about $6.80 - almost seven times the cost of desalinating sea water). Water pumped from Turkey via pipeline could cost only 0.35 euros (46 cents) per cubic metre, according to the preliminary estimates of Nicos Vassiliou, the chief advocate of the pipeline on the Greek side of Cyprus. A consultant and former senior planning officer in the Cypriot Planning Bureau, Vassiliou has been waging a campaign for the pipeline to be built, writing letters to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2005 and 2008, and discussing the project with Turkish Cypriot leader Talat last month. He is the front man for a group of Greek and Turkish Cypriots who aspire to build the pipeline as a joint venture with public subscription from both sides of the island. Vassiliou admits he does not know all the figures involved, but working from a capital cost of 350mn euros ($463mn) for the pipeline - a figure about 10% higher than that given by the Turkish Cypriot environment ministry - he has calculated that Turkish water could be pumped to Cyprus at a price which is less than half that of desalinated water and almost one fifteenth of the cost of water shipped from Greece. Vassiliou points out there would be considerable economies of scale if the pipeline's capacity were increased to provide for supplying large amounts of water to Greek Cypriots, who number about three times the north's population. Turkish Cypriot officials privately acknowledge this, and it stimulates their offer to sell water to the south. To transfer the water from north to south, Vassiliou would spend an additional 50mn euros ($66mn) on tunnelling a 15-km-long conduit under the Troodos Mountains - from Kakopetria to Saittas - so that the water can flow into the Kouris river and the southern water grid. Vassiliou says that one of the advantages of the pipeline is that, "the cost of the water would be low enough to be used for irrigation. Desalinated seawater is too costly for that." "Water is vital," Vassiliou said in an interview. If the two communities of Cyprus could build this pipeline, and their leaders re-unite the island at the same time, "present and future generations will be grateful to them". None of this convinces President Christofias, the Greek Cypriot leader, though. His spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said of the pipeline: "this issue cannot be discussed as long as there is the Cyprus problem." Presumably Christofias feels that even a vaguely positive response to the pipeline would compromise his position in the negotiations, committing himself to their success before the terms have been agreed. Vassiliou accepts that if the negotiations fail, there is no way Greek Cypriots would buy water from the north. But he argues that preparatory work for the pipeline should proceed in tandem with the negotiations. He wants Christofias and Talat to give the green-light for the detailed planning and research that bankers would require before committing funds. "If you start the detailed planning now, and there is no settlement, you wouldn't lose a lot of money," Vassiliou said. "If, however, there is a settlement, you would gain by getting cheap water sooner." An early start to the work on the pipeline might save Cyprus the difference between a year's worth of desalinated water and a year's worth of Turkish water: "perhaps 50-80mn euros" ($66mn to $106mn), Vassiliou said. - The Media Line News Agency
<<2_289059_1_248.jpg>>
