Portugal and Spain have already reached consensus regarding the solution for water intake in Pomarão, on the Guadiana river, and will meet and sign the final agreement on September 26, in Madrid, announced aminsists do Environment and Energy, this Tuesday, August 6th, during a visit to the Algarve.
According to Maria da Graça Carvalho, Portugal did not have to give in to Spain to reach an agreement on this project, which involves the construction of a surface water catchment on the Guadiana river, north of the town of Mesquita, upstream of Pomarão.
«It was a negotiation that went very well and there was no need to give anything away. They are also interested in solving their problems and we are interested in solving ours», the government official told journalists, on the sidelines of her visit to Praia do Garrão, in Loulé, where she also announced new investments to protect the coast.
The project to capture water from the Guadiana River in Pomarão, in the municipality of Mértola, is intended to contribute, on average, around 16 cubic hectometers annually to supply the Algarve. The water will be taken, through a pipeline of around 40 kilometers, to the Odeleite dam, inside the municipality of Castro Marim.
This is one of the measures of the Algarve Regional Water Efficiency Plan, and the work is financed with funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). It should cost 61,5 million euros.
In her statements to journalists, after the visit to Garrão, Maria da Graça Carvalho confirmed that, «at the end of August», the measures to combat the lack of water in the Algarve region will be reassessed.
«Right now, compared to last year, the situation is considerably better. Of course, it would be expected, because it rained a lot at the beginning of the year, but we managed to reach, at least, the beginning of August and we are better than in 2023, which was a difficult year», said the Minister of the Environment.
«The other good indicator is that there is a substantial water saving. In June, it was around 14% and, from January until the end of June, it was 9%. And there are two sectors that greatly reduced water consumption, which was golf, more than 50%, also because they were prohibited from watering for months, and 40 percent in agriculture, because they could not water during the period of the previous resolution of the Council of Ministers", he added.
According to the government official, in this water saving, «there has been a great involvement of the economic sectors and the population, tourism, a lot, with major campaigns to save water».
«Therefore, we are going to carry out this reassessment, but we are hopeful that very drastic changes will not be necessary», he concluded.
When asked what is planned, in the agreement with the Spanish, in addition to the withdrawal of water for the reservoirs, the minister explained: «in relation to the Tagus, what we are asking for is the guarantee of ecological flows, which are not only monthly and weekly, but also daily, or at least that there is a uniform distribution in relation to the days”.
Regarding Alqueva, Maria da Graça Carvalho says that she was asked to “monitor what was being spent on the Spanish side and do the math”.
«Spain, naturally, is willing to pay what it owes us for the water from Alqueva and that will be the case», he stated, noting that it should be an amount of two million euros per year.
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