The first legal challenge lodged against plans for a desalination plant off the Algarve coast near Albufeira has fallen.
Portuguese environmental agency APA has pronounced itself “satisfied” with the decision taken by Loulé’s Fiscal and Administrative court, albeit there remain two further legal bids pending to stop this infrastructure.
According to last estimates, the desalination plant set back from Praia da Falésia will cost over €108 million. The government sees the project as ‘reinforcing the sustainable supply of water to the Algarve’, albeit detractors refute this, citing the overwhelming environmental impacts.
The Loulé court’s decision has not brought any kind of start date into focus for the project as, according to TSF Rádio, APA is ‘aware that further legal challenges could come’.
“One cannot anticipate these things”, APA president Pimenta Machado told the station, adding: “there is one thing I am certain of: everything we have done has been well done, complying scrupulously with environmental legislation”.
The legal challenge rejected by Loulé’s court was presented by property company SEACLIFF COMPRA E VENDA DE IMÓVEIS, S.A. , which will see much of its land compulsorily purchased, for a sum far below market value, for the project.
SEACLIFF alleged in its lawsuit that the public consultation period for the RECAPE (Report on Environmental Conformity of the Project for Execution) violated European legislation because it gave only 20 consecutive days (15 working days) for people to give their opinions.
The public consultation began on July 3, and was due to end on July 23. The day before, however, the Loulé Fiscal and Administrative Court suspended the process, on the basis of Seacliff’s challenge.
It took until yesterday (Tuesday), for the judge to formally reject SEACLIFF’s challenge “due to lack of instrumentality”.
What happens now is that the public consultation period will be concluded, explains Pimenta Machado, and a DCAPE (Decision on the Conformity of the Project) will be issued on November 12.
The desalination plant is part of the Algarve Regional Water Efficiency Plan. Initially, it was planned to be financed by the Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PRR), but the project was transferred to the Climate Action and Sustainability Programme (Sustainable 2030). The Minister for the Environment claims there are ‘advantages’ to this, as it allows for “an increase in EU funding for the project, which could reach 85%”, writes TSF.
Opponents of the project include Algarve fishermen, and environmental groups which have been warning of the negative impacts of a plant that channels the waste products of the process back into the sea, and is exceptionally heavy on energy.
Questions also have been raised by AMAL, the intermunicipal community of the Algarve, over the costs for this water that will eventually be passed on to consumers.
For the time being, two further court bids remain: a lawsuit for improper execution of the expropriation of the land, and another challenging the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
Source material: TSF Rádio
