There is a debate in Paros concerning the level of water management: should this continue to be carried out by DEYAP in Paros, or should it be centralised at a regional or national level?
The Friends of Paros and Antiparos (FoPA) considers that the management of this common good should continue to be carried out in such a way as to guarantee not only an efficient and diligent service to the population, which allows it to exert an influence on the direction of this service but also under the best environmental and economic conditions.
FoPA also points out that water management is constitutionally a communal responsibility and that any transfer of this matter to a regional level could not take place without the agreement of the communes, either by amending the constitution or by a vote in parliament.
In addition to these legal conditions, a transfer of DEYAP’s activities to an entity to be created, with no established management capacity, is a leap into the unknown, which risks jeopardising current water management rather than generating hypothetical organisational advantages. In this respect, FoPA points to the patent inertia in waste management, currently managed by the Region.
Over and above the supply of water, the urgent need is to establish water sustainability by encouraging people to control their consumption and reuse wastewater, protecting existing water tables from saline intrusion through over-exploitation, protecting the seabed from saline pollution through the discharge of brine from desalination plants, the number of which is expected to increase, and avoiding greenhouse gas emissions through the consumption of electricity produced from fossil fuels.
FoPA also calls for this debate to be pursued by assessing the usefulness of creating an area of cooperation and exchange of experience at the regional level (the Cycladic Islands) involving the various municipal water management companies concerned. This area could provide municipal entities with useful support in technical matters, public procurement, project management, invoicing, financing, and monitoring of production, distribution, and environmental effects, for example. It could also pool the specific resources of each of its members. In addition to this support, it could also carry out audits and benchmarks to provide guidance and support to its members who lack management capacity because of their size.
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