DEVELOPMENT-PORTUGAL: Artificial Lake a Cauldron of Debate

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

MOURAO, Portugal, Aug 28 2002 (IPS) - An immense artificial lake in Portugal that is gradually flooding the most arid region of the entire European Union (EU) has environmentalists, defenders of cultural heritage and tourism operators making last-ditch efforts to halt the creation of the giant reservoir.

In February, the floodgates of the Alqueva dam were shut, beginning the process that will create the largest artificial lake in the EU by 2025.

The dam regulates the flow of the Guadiana River, located on the Spanish border in the southern Portuguese region of Alentejo. Ultimately, the reservoir will be a lake covering 250 square km with a maximum depth of 152 metres.

The dam is creating a reservoir that will flood a village and several homes scattered throughout the area, whose inhabitants have constructed a new town near the future lake.

The lake’s shores will extend to the municipality of Mourao, 180 km southeast of Lisbon and just six km from Spain’s border, and reach to Alentejo, Europe’s most arid region.

Alentejo ranks lowest in the EU for per capita income, alongside the Azores and Madeira Islands, which are also Portuguese possessions.

The total price tag for the mega-project is 1.76 billion dollars, of which 977 million is to come from the EU, 588 million from Portugal’s Treasury, and the remaining 196 million from private investors.

At the end of 2002, Alqueva is slated to have two 120-megawatt turbines in operation, able to supply electricity to Portugal’s southern regions. The lake is already at capacity to irrigate 5,800 hectares of fields.

The reservoir’s irrigation potential will reach 25,000 hectares of arid lands by 2006, and at its maximum depth, in 2025, it is expected to provide water for 110,000 hectares.

Environmental groups stress that the sacrifice of plant and animal species and habitat would be significantly reduced if the depth of the reservoir were a maximum of 139 metres, instead of the projected 152 metres.

The closing of the floodgates took place after 46 years of protests and counterprotests about the construction of the dam.

The mega-project was ordered in December 1955 by dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. The illegal political opposition of the era described the project as a “megalomaniacal act” and a “white elephant of fascism”.

The local League for the Protection of Nature (LPN) and the Environmentalist Association are demanding that work on the dam be suspended until a study is finalised on some stone figures found in the last few years in the Guadiana River. The artefacts are estimated to be between 6,500 and 10,000 years old.

Activist Miguel Pais, of the Environmentalist Association, accused the construction company of hiding the existence of the carvings, despite the government’s 4.9-million-dollar budget for archaeological research of the area that is to be covered by the artificial lake.

Helena Freitas, a scientist-activist with the LPN, called on the authorities to provide “maximum transparency” in the case. In 1995, work was halted on the northern dam of Vila Nova de Foz Coa due to stone paintings that would have been submerged in the reservoir, she pointed out.

However, the government and opposition alike have marked the differences between the two cases, because the paintings found in Foz Coa are thought to date back 22,000 years. And that dam would have provided fewer economic benefits than the authorities say the Alqueva dam will.

But putting the Alqueva dam in operation does entail some economic complications, too. The former president of the Alqueva Development and Infrastructure Enterprise, Aderito Serrao, said after he resigned in April that the state “was not assuming its responsibility” in designing an economic strategy for the dam.

“The political elite has lacked direction and there will be no way to respond to the predicted expenses of 50 million euros (49 million dollars) annually,” which is a “very burdensome commitment” that will require bringing in private capital, said Serrao.

The project “has no guarantees of financing beyond the year 2006,” warned the expert.

Furthermore, the economic benefits of the Alqueva irrigation systems have been cast into doubt by the Alentejo Centre for Underground Water Resources Research (ERHSA), which says it would be cheaper to tap aquifers in the area, an option that would cut costs for local farmers.

Scientists at the University of Evora, some 150 km southeast of Lisbon, say the main environmental damage that the Alqueva dam and reservoir would cause is the dramatic change in local flora and fauna, and their habitats, whether land- or water-based.

University experts also stressed in a report that the project would cause important losses in Portugal’s historic and archaeological wealth.

Nevertheless, even some activists see positive results arising from the dam, such as greater availability of water, an effort against desertification, and the increased appreciation and public awareness about the archaeological history of the zone.

The artificial lake would also diversify future tourism activities for the area, which is already an attraction with its landscape, hundreds-of-years-old villages with their characteristic Iberian architecture and numerous ranches and farmsteads for the nascent agro-tourism trend.

But the region does not have adequate recreational facilities, there is little professional training among tourism operators, and the business community lacks an economic development strategy, maintain the project’s critics.