The Government intends to deliver, next month, to parliament, a proposal to amend the water law that will allow it to have greater intervention in the management of consumption, announced the Minister of the Environment.
“We are counting on delivering the proposal to the Assembly of the Republic during the month of November. Some measures concern the ability to control water from a public point of view, have greater control over distribution, monitoring and reduction of abstraction”, said Duarte Cordeiro at a joint press conference with the Minister of Agriculture and Food, Maria do Céu Antunes, after a meeting of the Permanent Committee for Prevention, Monitoring and Monitoring of the Effects of Drought.
The minister explained that the need to change this law arises from the context of severe drought affecting Portugal, with particular incidence on the Alentejo coast and the western Algarve, and the inability demonstrated by the agricultural and urban sector in these regions to control water consumption.
“We want to have more intervention solutions in relation to water consumption when changing the water law to ensure that from next year onwards, especially at a time that coincides with the new water campaign for the agricultural sector, but also with the increase in tourism in the urban sector, we will have more capacity to intervene on the ground”, he pointed out.
Duarte Cordeiro explained that some measures concern “the ability to control water from a public point of view, particularly with regard to distribution and monitoring of abstraction.
In this sense, the government official admitted the possibility of imposing water rationing per hour or per customer, in urgent situations or in which there is “abnormal consumption”.
“There are some solutions that must exist in law for us to be able to intervene in a more muscular way and we want to do so, obviously, within a legislative framework”, he attested.
The government official also said that, also in November, a decision will be made whether or not to move forward with a contingency plan for next year, after a new meeting of the Permanent Commission for Prevention, Monitoring and Follow-up of the Effects of Drought.
“We are going to have a new meeting to understand, from the outset, the scenario that the IPMA (Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere) outlined for us for what precipitation is for this period of November and December and what this represented in terms of what is the recovery of the capacity of our reservoirs. Understand what the forecasts are by the end of the year”, he added.
Duarte Cordeiro also indicated that the Government will reinforce the inspection of aquifers and maintain monitoring of abstractions, preventing the misuse of boreholes.
It is also planned to reduce consumption in the Sado aquifer and suspend all titles awarded this year.
In August, the Minister of the Environment had announced an investment of five million euros for the Odelouca dam, in the western Algarve.
As explained by Duarte Cordeiro, the investment should be completed within a year, to reinforce the infrastructure capacity by 25 cubic hectometers.
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