I like mythology. Mainly for the almost playful way in which it makes us think about structural issues of the human condition, of our values, of our behaviors. With regard to the ongoing debate in this opinion space of the Sul Informação, on the theme of water resources, I recall precisely a figure from Greek mythology: Tantalus.
Tantalus was king of Phrygia (in more or less contemporary Anatolia, Turkey), and so-and-so was filthy rich. But taken away. It goes on, and at a time when mortals were allowed the grace of sharing a table with the gods, Tantalus gave a feast, in which he misbehaved.
There are divergent accounts of the nature of his faults as a host, but the most popular (and perversely exhilarating) account is that, in order to test the omniscience of the deities, he murdered, cooked, and served his son Pelops as a delicacy at this dinner.
Discovered the ignominy of such an abject "cat for a hare", the angry gods restored life to Pelops, cursing the kingdom and dynasty of Tantalus forever and ever. As an additional form of penalty, a particularly insane Zeus condemned Tantalus to a damnation in the Beyond, being forced to remain, for all eternity, in a lake, never being able to drink it to satisfy his insatiable thirst, as the waters ran away. whenever I tried to do it. Additionally, above him there was a tree, whose succulent fruits were always a little beyond his reach, thus condemning him also to an eternal hunger.
Well then, this curse, known as the ordeal of Tantalus, is more or less what the Algarve has to face if it doesn't radically change the way it views its water resources – and not only that.
No last opinion article I wrote, I left, in a way, a question to José Macário Correia, for not understanding, without further information, the reasons for his change of opinion regarding new dams in the Algarve. With the frankness that is recognized, he had the courtesy to deepen his argument, in defense of what was previously written. In your "answer" (your text is, of course, more than that), and among the arguments presented (many of which I subscribe), one in particular seemed to me to be central, and I do it in full good faith: the model of the contract of supply by Águas do Algarve to the Municipalities, based on the mandatory growth of minimum consumption.
This principle, having been incorporated as a basic value in the management of Águas do Algarve, is the original sin in the management of water resources. And it is precisely in interrupting this vicious cycle that the main challenge lies.
I believe that, at its genesis, there are economic criteria, perhaps associated with the system's own viability. As this concern is generally understandable, it becomes somewhat biased because it is water. Because the principle of water as a tradable good and not a fundamental resource for life – therefore in the sphere of inalienable rights – is not acceptable. Hence, as citizens and taxpayers, perhaps we should demand that, presiding over water management in contexts of scarcity, as has always been the Algarve context, from the conception of the model to its operationalization, rationality and efficiency, and not accounting.
For many, this can oscillate between the esoteric and the lyrical, but the fact is that the school that results from this merely mercantilist idea, admits everything, from waste to the superfluity of uses, passing through the irrationality of consumption. Everything, as long as the respective invoice (with fees and taxes attached, of course), is paid - and we know that in certain management entities, even so...
Therefore, it is more a matter of principle and ends than of means, the one that most significantly leads me to disagree with the positions that support the optimization of water use in relation to new abstraction infrastructures. The successive search for water sources in order to supply a perpetually growing demand does not seem feasible.
On the contrary, a dimensioning of consumption adjusted to carrying capacity, even more in a context of climate change whose main feature is the uncertainty that they introduce into climate patterns, is the most responsible and viable option (sustainable, if we want to use the buzzword), otherwise in line with the ancestral models of water use in the Algarve.
Without repeating the arguments previously presented here, I will just say that there is no denial of new infrastructure, the search for new alternative sources of water or prejudice towards them or any particular use - and in this regard, any superficial discussion about superficial analysis is vain, since the numbers are on the table.
There is the understanding that there is a great lack of its justification, feasibility and effectiveness - a fundamental knowledge gap - until all the waste is remedied, be it "conceptual" - the notion that we can scale our consumption believing we are always capable from fetching more water as long as we want it – and/or operational – networks with losses, bad practices in the use of water, inappropriate cultures of the edaphic-climatic reality –, more water will only serve to feed more waste, without ever actually meeting the needs .
Here we are, then, in a structural torture from Tantalus to the Algarve.
I fully agree with a key idea conveyed by Macário Correia: multifaceted solutions.
Naturally, there are no immediate, miraculous or unique solutions to this problem. Only a broad combination of ideas, well-founded decisions and, above all, determined actions will allow us to adapt. But they will all crumble at the base if we don't change the idea that adaptation depends only on increasing system inputs (inputs energy, water, space) and never by resizing consumption, as we will be facing a perpetual deficit.
In joint reflection, without taboos but also without sacred cows, we will certainly be able to reach ideas that are much better than this.
Otherwise, we will end up saying, as more or less so far, in a mixture of amazement and atoned conscience, that everything went according to plan, leaving out only one important detail: the plan was a stain.
Author Gonçalo Gomes is a landscape architect, president of the Algarve Regional Section of the Portuguese Association of Landscape Architects (APAP).
(and writes according to the old Spelling Agreement)
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