An alarm has been raised in Halkidiki. The water supply service of Nea Triglia has recently detected excess levels of arsenic in the treated water available in the water supply network.

For reasons of public health protection, the municipality of Nea Propontida issued a recommendation to the residents of the communities of Nea Triglia and Nea Plagia to avoid the use of water for drinking and cooking, limiting it only to hygienic uses (e.g. washing).

To achieve compliance with legal arsenic concentration limits, the municipal authority intends to install additional processing equipment at the existing plant, adding an additional purification stage.

The procurement procedures for the equipment have already started, while for the transitional period until the completion of the works, clean water will be made available to the communities through tankers.

The announcement in detail:

“Recently, due to the lack of water, over-pumping and increased needs in the summer months, a deterioration in the quality of the water pumped for treatment has been observed. Despite 15 years of continuous operation of an arsenic removal plant, exceedances in the concentration of arsenic at the outlet of the treatment plant have begun to be observed.

For this reason, it is considered necessary to install an additional treatment stage in the unit for additional removal of arsenic, so that the water at the final exit is below the limit set by the current legislation. The procedures for the supply of the additional machines have already started.

For the duration of the installation of the additional unit, our Municipality will continuously transport water with suitable tanker vehicles to meet the water needs in the Communities of Triglia and Plagia.

We suggest that the residents of the aforementioned Communities use the water from the water supply network for sanitary purposes and not for drinking and cooking. Once the installation at the additional processing stage unit is complete, a further announcement will follow.”