Work is under way to extend the Northern Axis sewage works at Gerani, which is overloaded every summer from the large numbers of visitors occupying holiday accommodation in the area. At the same time a pipeline is to be constructed which will transfer treated water from the treatment plant to be used for irrigating tree crops such as olives and citrus. The Northern Axis Water Board, DEYAVA, is now under pressure to complete the work, which has been delayed for many years, before the end of summer 2024.
The enlargement should alleviate the problem of the smell caused every summer by the sewage system’s inability to properly process the waste from the thousands of visitors who throng the area along the Old National Road (now Mikis Theodorakis Boulevard) from Kladissos to Kolymbari. The extension of the Northern Axis sewage works was originally signed in January 2022, with a deadline for completion of 30 months. However, the work was delayed by a series of problems stemming from a change of ownership of the contractor.
“We are pressing for a speeding-up of the work on the initial wastewater intake which causes the strongest smells,” the president of DEYAVA Eftychis Mavrogenis told Haniotika Nea. “There is pressure both from ourselves and from the Crete Development Organisation, which is overseeing the work, for it to be completed this summer.”
The extension work
The details of the work of extending the Northern Axis water treatment system are as follows:
– The contract signed was for a cost of €6 million, while the original estimate was for €8.5 million.
– When completed it will be able to serve up to 100,000 residents.
– It will be sufficient to cover a large part of the Gulf of Chania from Kolymbari to Kladissos (also serving part of the Municipality of Chania, Parigoria, Galatas, Daratsos and Agia Marina).
Funding for the work was agreed in 2018 from the public expenditure programmes Filodimos 1, and subsequently Antonis Tritsis.
Wastewater for irrigation
Concurrently an open tender has been issued for the construction of a pipeline which will transport processed wastewater from the Northern Axis treatment plant to make it available for the irrigation of tree crops in the wider area of Platanias.
“After three-stage processing by the wastewater plant, 5,000 cubic metres of water suitable for tree crops will be produced daily. That water will be transferred from Gerani through a pipeline to reservoirs of the Crete Development Organisation, and will be distributed to crops through new irrigation networks instead of going into the sea,” the President of DEYAVA said. The budget for the work is €298,973, and once completed it should help to solve the irrigation problems in the countryside of Platanias.
“That water will reduce the problems of drought. All sewage treatment should be moving in that direction, the wastewaters being processed so that they can subsequently be made use of for irrigation,” Mr Mavrogenis concluded.
(Haniotika Nea, 19/03/24)