Aquaterra saw first plan vetoed; tries for a slightly smaller plantation
Environmental organisation GEOTA has warned today that the Murta dam in Alcácer do Sal (Setúbal district) “runs serious risk of drying up” if the massive avocado plantation project planned for the municipality gets the approval it is gunning for.
Months ago, local opposition whooped with joy to hear the plan by Aquaterra to cover another 722.24 hectares in the borough with water-guzzling avocados had been blocked. But it wasn’t an end to the matter: Aquaterra was given six months to ‘reformulate the plan’, which it has done: 32 boreholes to be sunk instead of the original 34, and 658,44 hectares to be planted out, instead of the original 722.24…
In a press release sent to Lusa news agency, GEOTA (the acronym for Group for the Study of Territorial Planning and the Environment) has basically said ‘there is no difference’. The land in question is a “biodiversity hotspot” which “provides fresh water to countless species of birds and mammals, among others”. Whether one is sucking up water for thirsty young trees planted out over 722 hectares, or 658, it is a lot of water that the area simply does not have.
Warning of the very possible disappearance of the reservoir, GEOTA emphasised that it is not simply “maintaining the diversity of habitats” that is at stake here, but on mitigating climate change, preserving and promoting the sustainable use of water resources” – not squandering it on vast agricultural monocultures in areas that have never before used so much water for crop production.
Aquaterra’s Herdades de Murta e Monte Novo Agroforestry Project covers a total area of 2,402.10 hectares in the parish of Comporta and the Union of Parishes of Alcácer do Sal (Santa Maria do Castelo and Santiago) and Santa Susana.
GEOTA stresses that “the lack of vision of companies that focus on immediate profit/benefit, camouflaged by values of economic and social competitiveness, in promoting intensive irrigated tropical monocultures, is regrettable“.
This type of investment “gradually de-characterises the landscape” and leads to “the exhaustion of water resources in an area of the country that has long been in structural drought.
“Avocado growing puts enormous pressure on aquifers and, if the CCDR Alentejo gives the go-ahead for yet another plantation, in this case covering more than 658 hectares, it is estimated that the volume of groundwater extracted per year by the company promoting the project will amount to a total of more than 2.850 billion litres, altering the balance of this aquifer once and for all and consequently putting the Murta dam at risk.”
The reservoir is “essentially fed by a spring in the groundwater aquifer that allows it to have water available all year round”, but “if groundwater levels are lowered by intense extraction for irrigation, the spring will dry up” with devastating consequences.
GEOTA has also stressed that successive approvals given “mostly by the CCDR” for agricultural and tourism projects have already allowed the destruction of 30% of the area of the Comporta-Galé Special Conservation Zone (ZEC), as well as the excessive consumption of water resources“. ND
Source: LUSA
