Portugal has invested around 13,000 million euros in the water sector in the last 25 years to improve its quality, the Secretary of State for the Environment and Energy, João Galamba, said on Friday.
In Arganil, in the district of Coimbra, during the inauguration of three water supply subsystems to the municipality, the official highlighted that the Operational Program for Sustainability and Efficiency in the Use of Resources (POSEUR) alone mobilized 560 million European funds to finance 940 operations throughout the country.
This investment will continue in the future and, within the framework of community support until 2027, investments in water supply and sanitation will continue”, guaranteed João Galamba, stressing that, in recent decades, the reform of the sector was “structured based on strategic plans sequential”.
The Secretary of State for the Environment and Energy has also revealed that the Government is finalizing the Strategic Plan for the Supply of Residual and Rainwater until 2030, “which aims to guarantee excellent water services for all and with correct accounting”.
Water and its management require “a clear political agendawhen studies point to a scenario of scarcity, decreased rainfall and increasingly frequent and intense periods of extreme drought.
Stressing that rainfall has decreased by around 15% in the last 20 years, João Galamba indicated that the most recent studies point to a greater reduction by the end of the century, between 10 and 25%.
Despite the current situation of extreme drought in Portugal, which is experiencing the second driest year since 1931, the Secretary of State for the Environment and Energy has ruled out, for the time being, a scenario of rationing human water consumption, although it has called for savings in non-priority consumption that must be reduced.
The official inaugurated today the rehabilitation of three of the five water supply subsystems of the municipality of Arganil (Vila Cova de Alva, Alqueve and Pomares), which involved an investment of 3.4 million euros by the company Águas do Centro Coastal (AdCL).
Inserted in the AdCL Multimunicipal Potable Water and Sanitation System, the three infrastructures It will allow to supply in greater quantity and with better quality more than 4,000 inhabitants in these parishes of the municipality of Arganil.
At the ceremony, the mayor of Arganil recalled that the inaugurated investments are the “peak of a process contracted in 2004”, with the then Águas do Mondego, current AdCL, whose interventions should have concluded in 2008.
According to Luís Paulo Costa, the great delay was due to “the great complexity” of the water supply and sewage systems”, which is not unrelated to the “demanding” orography of the municipality, the dispersion of 180 villages, in 332 square kilometers of municipal territory.
This complexity is not unrelated to the fact that a good part of the towns are very far from each other and have very few inhabitants”, said the mayor, who also pointed out that “the demanding circumstances” of the municipality determined that there are some 60 autonomous communities. capture subsystems.
Of those 60, only five are integrated into the AdCL multi-municipal system, since the remaining 55, of small capacity, were not large enough to be added and managed by that company, which, according to Luís Paulo Costa, made access to community financing non-viable
The mayor highlighted that, in the last five years, AdCL and the City Council of Arganil have invested more than 12 million euros in the rehabilitation and expansion of sanitation systems, water supply and improvement of solid waste management in the municipality .
AdCL’s multi-municipal system covers 30 municipalities in the districts of Aveiro, Coimbra and Leiria and a population of around 1.1 million inhabitants.
Source: Observadora
