New setbacks for plan labouring under simmering local opposition
The plan to construct a large desalination plant off one of the most iconic beaches in the Algarve has hit new barriers this week: an administrative action laying the foundations for declaring the environmental impact statement invalid, and the admission that the project is “expected to cost a lot more” than the money included in the EU’s heroic funding package, the PRR (standing for plan for recovery and resilience).
Critics have always said that the only reason authorities are moving forwards with desalination in the Algarve is because the project will be paid for by Brussels’ millions.
Costing began at €50 million; fairly swiftly moved up to €90 million – and now the final bill is “expected to be a lot more”.
Quite how much more – and who would have to pay the difference – is not explained.
Indeed, Expresso this week in a long article on the “low execution of measures (covered by EU funding) for water in the Algarve” gives little space to desalination – simply saying that the project has hit “more barriers and is unlikely to be completed by 2026 as planned”.
For opponents this is nothing short of manna from Heaven. The understanding (indeed, everything said by authorities this far) is that if the project cannot be finished by the end of 2026, it may never get off the ground.
Households in areas in line for ‘compulsory purchase orders’ (reportedly due to be executed in August) contacted the Resident last week to describe visits from “arrogant people representing Águas do Algarve” who have told them they “should accept offers made for their land”.
This is incredibly difficult for several: an earlier report has already mentioned the Galician family who planned to build and run an old people’s home on land valued at €15 million. Águas do Algarve wants to ‘compulsorily purchase’ the land for just €650,000. Now we have been contacted by another family who recently purchased an “idyllic” field for €15,000 to house rescued donkeys, and now face losing it, and its covering of centenarian trees, for the payment of a paltry €1,600.
There are many more stories where these two came from: families who never imagined their land could be ‘snatched from under their feet’ – for a project few even understand.
In theory, taking the salt out of seawater and turning it into drinking water sounds wonderful, but there are a legion of environmental consequences attached to this process. Seacliff – Compra e Venda de Imóveis, S.A. is adamant that it should not happen, which is why the company lodged its administrative action at Loulé Administrative Tribunal last Wednesday.
The strategy is to prompt a full reassessment on the merits of the project while nothing tangible is moving forwards. There is still “a long way to go in terms of licensing required” before work on the ground can begin (indeed, there will even have to be a second public participation exercise).
Seacliff’s focus right now is ‘starting the ball rolling’. If the time comes for something more radical, the administrative action has paved the way for a full-blown ‘embargo’ (providência cautelar) to impede heavy machinery moving onto people’s lands and beginning work.
Speaking to us over the weekend, Seacliff’s Álbida Ferreiro stressed this is not just about the company’s own projects “that are being, and will be, prejudiced” by the massive infrastructure set back from Praia da Falésia. It is about the “homeowners, hotels, beach businesses, fishermen” that will be affected (by the building works/ the channeling back into the ocean of untreated brine and ‘chemical sludge’) – “and that’s just the people. When it comes to the environment, and our future and that of our children, we are talking of the destruction of a marvellous, emblematic beach which sustains so many people, for a project that will not solve the problem of water”, she stressed.
This is the centrepiece of Seacliff’s action which is likely to take many months before hearings are scheduled and decisions finally made.
The company’s press release refers to the project as one that is “based on a lie. A fundamental lie propagated by Águas do Algarve that this is a project that seeks to guarantee the resilience of public water supply to the Algarve population.
“All one needs to do is look at what is happening in Spain which has 765 desalination plants and continues with very serious problems supplying water to populations, to understand that this desalination plant will not resolve the problem it sets out to resolve”.
Seacliff’s reading is that there are a number of aspects that have been “poorly studied, if studied at all”. The environmental impact study “identified” the risks to marine life being sucked into the seawater intake system; the damage to species and habitats; the ‘creation of instability’ in the cliff (at Falésia beach) that will be excavated to channel untreated brine from the plant and back into the ocean, and the risk of possible pipe ruptures at any point in the process.
“This is a bad project, unnecessary and dangerous”, concludes Seacliff whose action is backed by the platform of environmental NGOs and associations that has been sounding the alert since desalination became the mantra for tackling the Algarve’s issues with water.
Meantime, other less contentious solutions are similarly in the doldrums.
As Expresso explains, the long-held plan for a kind of water highway from the Guadiana river (at Pomarão) to inland dams “is still at the environmental impact evaluation phase, albeit the green light should come soon” – and the majority of ETARs (water treatment plants) are still far from all being on track to treat wastewater sufficiently so that it can be used in the irrigation of agriculture/ golf courses.
“Works also to reduce losses in the urban network are moving at a snail’s pace”, warns the paper, while the levels of Algarve dams and reservoirs “remain critical”.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
