In line with criticism that ‘environmental impact statements’ /‘public participation exercises’ into state-backed plans for the ‘energy transition’ are ‘whitewashes’ of the most glaring kind, PAS – the platform of NGOs and associations focused on ensuring sustainable water within the Algarve, has issued a new press release, entitled: “Justifying the Unjustifiable”.
It essentially repeats PAS’s myriad warnings over the years that the installation of a desalination plant off the coast of Albufeira “paves the way for irreversible damage to the Algarve coast and marine ecosystem, harms existing economic activities – namely fishing and tourism – compromises the balanced and sustainable development of the region, fails to prevent accidents, and manifestly violates the principle of “Do No Significant Harm”.
But still the ‘authorities’ gave it a conditional ‘green light’ – or more exactly what is called a ‘conditional DCAPE’ standing for Decision on the Environmental Compliance of the Execution Project.
This DCAPE “does not present the content of several submissions’ to the ‘public participation exercise’ – including that of PAS.
These submissions were all detailed technical explanations as to why installing a desalination plant in Albufeira would be so exceptionally catastrophic.
As PAS explains: “This omission seems intentional to us: PAS’s participation in this Public Consultation listed all the requirements/conditions presented in the Environmental Impact Statement/EIA, and compared them with the measures proposed in RECAPE, allowing us to verify that RECAPE did not respond to the demands presented in the DIA”.
To the lay reader all these initials will be confusing: but what they boil down to is that the authorities asked for people to say what they felt about the plan – and when they did (with scientific explanations backing their concerns) – they were studiously ignored.
The government/ EU wants a desalination plant off the coast of Albufeira – and that would appear to be that. It has nothing to do with ‘environmental safety’. As environmental engineer Cláudia Sil explained at an open meeting two summers ago, it is all about satisfying agrobusiness which wants to use the Algarve to grow produce which can then be sold throughout Europe.
PAS’ latest press statement carefully explains that it “cannot understand, nor find any legal justification for Portugal’s ‘environmental agency’ APA having issued a conditional favorable declaration for this project.
“In the RECAPE (report on environmental conformity)” for example, APA presented hundreds of documents (more than 400) some in Portuguese, some in Spanish others in English – made available in a completely disorganised and inorganic manner, some of them repeated and with titles that did not allow their content to be identified.
“Despite these obstacles to consultation, PAS found that several documents were still not being presented, or were being presented incompletely, namely plans, graphic surveys and data analysis, which would necessarily have to be evaluated prior to the start of the approval of the work, in the Preliminary Project phase”.
In other words, this appears to have been more of a bamboozling exercise (to deluge the public with information) than one that seriously set out to inform people of what is being presented as a way of ‘reinforcing’ the region’s sustainability when it comes to water.
Equally, the DCAPE “still requires 20 documents, which are missing and must be submitted prior to the start of construction and the plant’s operational phase”, PAS points out. These documents are “essential before work can be carried out”. They include:
- an Environmental Monitoring Plan for the Work
- a Dredging Plan
- a plan on how the waste and effluent from the plant will be ‘managed’ (at the moment information is that it will simply be pumped back out to sea)
- an Environmental Impact Study on Noise (which has a significant impact on the aquatic environment, says PAS)
- a Heritage analysis of the results of geotechnical work and geoarchaeological information from palaeogeographical investigations carried out on the river and coastline of Quarteira (i.e. the study of the Stability of the Crossing Zone, Cliffs/Cliffs included)
- Assessment of the technical and safety feasibility of using the intersection of the EM (municipal road) 526 with Caminho da Roupeira as access to the worksite.
“A list of 123 mitigation measures is also included as necessary during the execution phase of the work, which should be included in the respective Environmental Monitoring Plan for the Work”, stresses PAS.
“In RECAPE, a positive change is proposed, which reduces the impacts, compared to those that would occur as a result of what was proposed in the Preliminary Study – the change concerning the tunnels for water collection and brine discharge pipes. However, the impact of the pipeline installation (through cliffs) will continue to exist and will be significant on marine ecosystems and seawater quality”.
For now, PAS is drawing a line in the sand. It is saying: ‘This is wrong; you know it is wrong – and it is also ‘illegal’ (because it is wrong). What are you going to do about it?’
If the ‘answer’ continues to be silence – as has been the case with all the cases made against this project in the past – then hopes will be pinned on the two lawsuits still ‘in the court system’, lodged by local company SEACLIFF COMPRA E VENDA DE IMÓVEIS, S.A.
We can only ‘watch this space’.
PAS consists of 13 non-governmental organisations, namely A Rocha Portugal, Água é Vida, AlBio – Associação Agroecológica do Algarve, Almargem-Associação de Defesa do Património Cultural e Ambiental do Algarve, CIVIS-Associação para o Aprofundamento da Cidadania, and Ecotopia-Associação Ambiental e de Desenvolvimento Sustentável.
Also belonging to the platform are FALA-Fórum do Ambiente do Litoral Alentejano, Faro 1540 – Association for the Defence and Promotion of the Environmental and Cultural Heritage of Faro, Glocal Faro, League for the Protection of Nature (LPN), the Association for the Algarve Barrocal (Probaal), Quercus-National Association for Nature Conservation, the REGAR group and ZERO – Sustainable Earth System Association.
Source: PAS – Sustainable Water Platform/ Lusa
