Mykonos is facing the risk of being left without enough water in the summer and residents of the Greek island could even find themselves declaring a state of emergency, according to local reports.
Increased tourist traffic as well as a two-year wait for the licensing of new desalination units has seen dams run low on water. This year’s drought is causing serious problems and these are likely to increase during the critical tourist season.
“The water in the dam reservoirs is very low, while the procedures for the licensing of two new desalination units were completed during Holy Week,” the chairman of the Municipal Water Supply Company of Mykonos, Michalis Zouganelis told a meeting of the island’s municipality.
“An application for the allocation of space for the installation of the new desalination units was submitted to the Municipal Port Authority in 2016. The licensing procedure to install them took two years and two months,” Zouganelis said.
There has also been a plan to buy in water in case the desalination units do not start operating in time, he said.
The only way case to accelerate bureaucratic procedures is to declare the island in a state of emergency, a far-fetched alternative, but one that is also in consideration, Zouganelis added.
