The cloudy water that has been coming out of the taps in Salir, in the interior of the municipality of Loulé, for weeks, is "an absolutely expected consequence of the drought", he explained to the Sul Informação Vítor Aleixo, president of the Chamber.
«What is happening in Salir is what is happening all over the country, particularly in the south, where water reserves are decreasing in a way and at a very worrying pace. The water that is extracted from the holes in Salir is extracted in a greater quantity than the hole's own capacity to regenerate and replenish its own water and that is why it appears cloudy in the pipes», clarified the mayor.
After receiving a complaint from a resident of Salir about this issue – which has already led to a petition - Or Sul Informação went looking for answers.
The mayor of Loulé guaranteed that the municipality is "very proactively monitoring" the situation.
«We have taken some measures in order to cause the least possible inconvenience and impact on people's lives, but here we have a limiting circumstance which is the fact that water availability, visibly, is decreasing around us. This is an absolutely expected consequence of the drought and what we can do against it is to activate our contingency plan for periods of drought, which we have already done», continued the mayor.
At the moment, the municipality is developing a campaign among the people who live in the municipality «so that they adopt a more responsible, more conscious behavior, in the sense of using the least amount of water possible from the moment they turn on the tap so they can make your life", said Vítor Aleixo.
Despite the population complaining of «a public health problem», the mayor of Loulé clarifies that «for now, it is only cloudy water that appears in the network, but, at the moment, we have no indication that the water is unsuitable for consumption".
In statements to the Sul Informação, one of the residents of Salir who complains about the situation says that “there is awareness of the situation and the Council has known for several years that the water level in the hole would be compromised if it did not rain for a few years and the municipality did nothing. In fact, we are waiting for the renewal of the supply network, which has serious deficiencies and constant ruptures, wasting thousands of liters of water annually».
As for the future resolution of the problem, Vítor Aleixo said that «for now, we are doing everything that is possible to do, but this is not a problem that can be solved with a measure that is taken today and tomorrow will be solved. There is a strategy and a plan that does not date from now, which has been thought of in recent years by the Municipality of Loulé, which is one of the Municipalities that is most aware of the negative impact of climate change».
«We have to adapt and change behaviors, but what is possible to do, we are doing», concluded the mayor.
Photos of the cloudy water sent by residents of Salir:
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