The Minister of the Environment today held the Almada City Council and the Municipal Water and Sanitation Services (SMAS) responsible for the water supply crisis in the municipality, pointing to a lack of investment as one of the causes.
In statements to journalists, on the occasion of the signing of a protocol for the dredging of the Mira River in the municipality of Odemira (Beja district), Maria da Graça Carvalho stated that the responsibility for water supply “in high and in low” rests with the Almada City Council and the SMAS.
The minister referred to ERSAR reports – the Regulatory Authority for Water and Waste Services – that show water losses higher than the national average and insufficient investment in renewing the network.
“What happened over several years, and this is evident in ERSAR reports, is that the amount of losses is high, higher than the national average — about 35% losses in the pipes. The national average is around 26%, which is also high. On the other hand, investment has not been desirable,” she criticized.
On the other hand, the minister lamented that the “bad relationship” between the municipalities of Almada and Seixal, both in the Setúbal district, contributed to the failure to resolve the problem of a borehole that collapsed in August of last year.
“Three weeks from now it will be completely restored. The main reason this happened was that there was a borehole that collapsed last year, in August, and the executive and the Almada SMAS did not recover it due to a difficulty in the relationship with Seixal,” she lamented.
Maria da Graça Carvalho said that, at the meeting held last Thursday with the Almada town hall, the SMAS, the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), Águas de Portugal and EPAL, a contingency plan was agreed that began to be implemented immediately.
Among the measures adopted, she highlighted restrictions on non-priority consumption, the commissioning on Saturday of a new borehole in Almada and the use of a borehole made available by the municipality of Seixal, which should come into operation later this week.
The minister added that Seixal will build two more boreholes, the completion of which is expected to take two to three weeks.
Until then, she admitted that restrictions on non-essential consumption and controlled night-time cuts should continue to allow the reservoirs’ levels to recover.
The minister indicated that the Government will study, together with the South Bank municipalities and EPAL, a structural solution to create a second source of water supply for that region, via a connection to the system that feeds Lisbon from Castelo de Bode.
Questioned about the criticisms by the president of the Almada City Hall, Inês de Medeiros (PS), who accused the Government of political opportunism, the minister rejected that interpretation.
“The only thing I did was go to Almada and make available the Central Administration agencies and Águas de Portugal to help wherever necessary,” she said.
The minister also added that consumers affected by prolonged interruptions in supply may be entitled to compensation provided for in the service quality regulation, upon submitting the respective request.
The Seixal municipality confirmed on Monday that it is available to temporarily cede one of its water intake boreholes to increase supply to the neighboring municipality of Almada.
The municipality detailed that the borehole is located about 25 meters from a distribution pipeline of Almada’s water network, so “the connection will, swiftly, reinforce the water supply to the population of the municipality of Almada.”
In recent days, residents of several localities in the Almada municipality have reported repeated water outages, and a petition has been launched that already has more than four thousand signatures, in which the petitioners demand urgent measures to minimize the impacts of the supply failures.
Meanwhile, the Almada Municipal Assembly will discuss next week a motion of censure from the PSD against the socialist leadership of the municipality, accusing it of repeated failures in managing the water crisis, civil protection, housing, urban hygiene and accountability.
The document, which the Lusa agency had today access to, will be discussed at the next meeting of the Almada Municipal Assembly (Setúbal district), which is set for the 21st of this month.
Chega has already announced that it will accompany the PSD’s motion of censure against the socialist executive of the Almada City Council.
The Almada City Council, led by socialist Inês de Medeiros, has four members elected by the PS, three by the CDU (PCP-PEV), two by the PSD, and two others elected by Chega. In the minority, the PS signed a governing agreement with the CDU.
The PSD’s motion of censure, even if approved, is not binding and, therefore, will have no practical effect on the continuity of the executive.
