The mayor of Mogadouro, António Pimentel, said Wednesday that 15 villages in the municipality are being supplied with water by tank trucks due to the drought and the high temperatures that are felt.
The problem we are experiencing is in the towns that are supplied by small water intakes. Here, as we predicted, there is an increase in difficulties. In April, we predicted that around a dozen villages would have water supply problems, at the moment there are 15”, the Social Democratic mayor of that municipality in the district of Bragança told Lusa.
Given the high temperatures recorded in the region, António Pimentel said, “there was an increase in water consumption“, mainly due to the existing agricultural activities in these localities that need to be supplied by tanker trucks.
António Pimentel mentioned, however, that this problem would arise regardless of the increase in temperatures, and he immediately sought a solution, which implies “the acquisition of tank with capacity for 30 to 35 thousand liters of water to supply the most needy towns.
It has not yet been possible to acquire this tank truck with the capacity to supply the towns. I myself have already approached the vice-president of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), engineer Pimenta Machado, with the commitment to make a protocol with the municipality of Mogadouro for the acquisition of that vehicle”, he explained.
António Pimentel admits “certain concern” in the water supply, “given that it is still the beginning of summer and we must take measures in advance”.
“Mogadouro still does not have the problems of other municipalities, but the appropriate measures must be taken, in advance, so that water is not lacking,” he stressed.
The mayor has also said that until now the municipality has resorted to the means and resources of the Mogadouro Fire Department to bring water to the towns most affected by the drought, but has warned that “the Civil Protection services have the obligation to put available its resources from other municipalities and counties, in case of fires or other incidents, whenever requested and without the possibility of forecasting”, which “may affect the water supply to the most needy populations”.
“In these situations, the populations that need to be supplied with water will be left without this supply for an unforeseen time,” he explained.
Currently, according to a document to which Lusa had access, there are three locations of the municipality of Mogadouro that are being supplied daily by tank trucksand others with a frequency of once or twice a week, with amounts between 15 and 60 cubic meters of water.
The mayor also added that to remedy this situation in times of drought, a water supply project is being prepared for the eastern sector of the municipality.
In the village of Brunhosinho, we already have a tank with a capacity of three million liters of water, whose water comes from a catchment in the Douro River and will be distributed through a system of pipes, from the Variz mountain range, to that the towns that are supplied by small intakes or wells no longer have problems with the water supply”, concluded the mayor.
Source: Observadora
