Residents in Foral have launched a petition urging Silves Council to link the area to the municipal water network
A group of residents of Foral – a small community in Algoz, Silves, also known as Quinta da Larga Vista – have warned that they are just “five months away from running out of water.”
The private company that currently supplies water to the area has announced it will stop providing the service on December 31, 2024, meaning that around 80 families are at risk of no longer having access to potable water.
Residents claim they have been urging the municipal council of Silves for years to link the area to the municipal water network, but that the response has invariably been that the works are too costly for the local coffers to bear.
“Imagine waking up in the 21st century, in a developed country, a proud member of the European Union, only to find that you and your neighbours are about to lose access to something as basic and essential as water. This nightmare is about to become a reality for the residents of Foral, also known as Quinta da Larga Vista, a small but vibrant community of 80 households in the parish of Algoz,” says a statement released on Tuesday by the Residents’ Association of the “Quinta da Larga Vista” Allotment.
Providing further insight into the situation, the association explains that it received the worrisome news on July 23 that Fonte Pitoresca, Lda., the “private company that has been our lifeline, will cease supplying water to our homes on December 31, 2024. For decades, we have depended on this water, both for domestic use and irrigation. Now, we face an uncertain future, as the company gives notice that it can no longer sustain its service due to restrictions and financial constraints,” the association says.
“For years, we have been asking the municipal council of Silves to connect us to the municipal water network, a request that has been consistently denied. A small number of residents have boreholes but they too are under stress or drying up, and yet, the council remains unmoved,” the residents lament.
Adding to the association’s “despair” are the major projects that have been approved near the community, including a “massive 96-hectare solar farm” to the north, described as an “area crucial for aquifer recharge”.
“This project threatens to deplete our already stressed groundwater sources further, so we are fighting this in court,” the resident state.
Meanwhile, an “industrial scale avocado farm” to the south and “large scale citrus farms all around us” are “sucking up huge amounts of water from our shared source of groundwater.”
According to the association, it is “unacceptable that the council refuses to provide us with water, while approving or turning a blind eye to projects that jeopardise our existing sources”.
The statement ends with the listing of the residents’ two main demands: the connection of Foral to the municipal water network “as soon as practically possible”; and if Fonte Pitoresca ceases its service, the municipal council of Silves “must take over the existing infrastructure or provide a temporary solution until we are connected to the municipal network.”
“Water is not just a utility; it is a basic human right. Without it, our lives and our community are at risk. We feel abandoned by the authorities who should be protecting us,” the association says.
A petition has been created urging the council to take action, having already been signed by 128 people (at the time of writing). So far, the council has yet to comment.
