By: NATASHA SMITH
A COUPLE in Tavira are fighting CCDR (commission of co-ordination and regional development) after their application for a licence to drill a borehole on their land was rejected three times.
The couple, who preferred to remain anonymous, have lived in the Algarve for four years and were so shocked by the decision that they took their complaint to the European Union and the Ombudsman for Portugal.
At the beginning of this year, they applied for a licence to drill a borehole along with three other local residents through an agency. Theirs was the only one to be rejected. They were the only permanent and foreign residents out of the four who applied.
After the first rejection, they offered to move the proposed site to another one further away, but this was rejected on the basis that the site was within 100m of a Portuguese neighbour’s borehole, which was already in existence. In a letter, CCDR wrote: “The collections of different users of the same aquifer should be a minimum of 100m away.” The couple then proposed a third location, which they measured as being 105m away from the neighbour’s borehole.
Discrimination
Three weeks ago, surveyors from CCDR went to measure the distance of the third proposed site and according to the couple, two of them believed that the site was more than 100m away but the senior surveyor said that he believed it was the same distance as the second proposed site from the neighbour’s borehole.
They did not physically measure the distance and estimated it using maps of the land, which the couple believe are inaccurate. Their request was verbally denied and they are awaiting written confirmation of this.
Several attempts by The Resident were made to contact CCDR, but nobody was available for comment.
CCDR told the couple that the only way they would be allowed to drill is if the neighbour agreed, which he did not, according to the couple. Allegedly, the other alternative they were given was to be granted a licence to drill a hole for water, which costs on average 3,000 euros to drill. CCDR said it would monitor this but if the water levels of the neighbour’s borehole went down, they would be automatically rejected for a licence to construct a borehole.
Experts told the couple that, in this case, one in five people are usually rejected and given the problems to date, they believe “we will be the one is five that gets rejected”.
At the time of going to press, the couple had not received any response from the Ombudsman. They said that if they do not receive a response soon they “will go back to the EU with a claim of racial discrimination”.
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