government ‘hoist by its own petard’? – Portugal Resident

PAS, the Sustainable Water Platform, has waded back into the mire that the government seems to have created with water management policy in the Algarve. 

The platform of NGOs and environmental entities has issued a statement today as authorities confirm the new ‘precautionary measure’ filed with the Loulé Fiscal and Administrative court last week has indeed stopped construction work on the Algarve desalination plant (or EDAM, as it is officially described).

PAS returns to the “high costs for the entire marine ecosystem, including habitat degradation and biodiversity loss” that the plant will have, while it will only assure an annual production of “approximately 6% of the volume of water consumed by the region”.

With a current estimate (based on last year’s costings) of just under €108 million, PAS – along with other entities, including the local municipal council and fishing associations – argues that the price, “considering the associated impact on a privileged area of the Algarve coast”, is just not worth it.

The impact of the desalination process (pumping brine and chemicals straight back into the sea) “will ultimately affect different economic activities in the region, particularly those related to tourism and fishing,” says PAS – and then there is the decision, announced by the prime minister over the weekend, to lift restrictions on the licensing of groundwater extraction wells in the region, ‘given the country’s favourable water situation’.

‘What favourable water situation?’ the association queries. If a desalination plant is of the ‘extreme urgency’ that the government has been arguing for so long, how can the prime minister suddenly decide that ‘a favourable water situation’ exists, which allows for the further plundering of aquifers in southern areas?

According to official data from the SNIRH (National System for Water Resources Information), the aquifers of the Algarve and Alentejo remain in a critical condition, says PAS.

“This government decision raises serious doubts about the technical criteria used and the coherence of measures adopted,” PAS continues – while elsewhere critics have simply said the policy disconnect suggests a great deal more than incompetence.

Source: PAS statement/