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The Humberto Delgado Airport operates with an environmental impact declaration that had to be reviewed in 2015, which makes its operation illegal in environmental terms, warns the Zero association, which demands that the problem be solved.
“We are not going to sit still,” the president of the association, Francisco Ferreira, told Lusa this Wednesday.
According to the person in charge, Zero has already carried out a legal assessment of the situation and, if necessary, will go to court to temporarily regularize a situation that in reality cannot be regularized, because it is not possible to comply with the Noise Law.
A day after the Government announced in Alcochete the location of a new airport in the Lisbon area, replacing the Humberto Delgado airport (AHD), the environmental association met with the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho , to discuss the main topics under debate.
In statements to Lusa after the meeting, the president of Zero explained that the environmental impact declaration (DIA) of the AHD dates back to 2006 and predicted the end of the airport in 2015, with a maximum of 180 thousand movements per year and a maximum of 16 million passengers per year.
The truth is that almost a decade has passed and the annual movements are more than 222 thousand, for more than double the number of passengers, 33 million.
So, he said to Zero, the airport is “illegal, since it is outside the license”.
“It was passed and there was no other evaluation, because the impact on noise and air quality is illegal,” in the words of Francisco Ferreira.
According to the official, the minister paid close attention to the fact that the AHD operated without a legal framework from an environmental point of view and understood the relevance of the issue.
The Prime Minister, he stated, “is wrong when he says that it is necessary to go from 38 to 46 movements per hour” (in the AHB), because not even 38 movements are legal.
“The legislation of the Environmental Impact Study is clear, if there is an expansion of the airport I have to do an environmental impact evaluation.”
Regarding the new airport, Francisco Ferreira admitted that Alcochete has environmental problems, but expressed “great satisfaction” at the end of the Montijo optionand that Alcochete will completely replace the current airport when it is ready.
The president of Zero stated that the association informed the minister that they agree with a third bridge over the Tagus River in the Lisbon area, as long as it is only by rail, and with the Lisbon-Madrid connection.
But a road and rail bridge does not have the support of the association.
Maria da Graça Carvalho, said Francisco Ferreira, explained to the association that the Government is negotiating with parliament the implementation of the basic climate law.
He added that the review of the National Energy and Climate Plan (PNEC) will not be delivered to the European Commission until the end of the year and agreed that major issues requiring strategic environmental assessments could have a model similar to that of the independent technical commission. which proposed new locations for the airport.
At Zero, also second Francisco Ferreira, asked Maria da Graça Carvalho about the fact that Portugal is not part of the group of 11 countries that issued a document so that the Lei Europeia do Restauro Ecológico is approved by the latest European environmental council, marked for 17 of June.
The minister said that there was no time to give a response, but assured that Portugal supports the document.
At the meeting, the minister agreed to call for a consensus with other parties to review the 2003 water law to resolve issues related to the balance between groundwater and surface water, with the fact that the price of water does not appear in many activities, and with the need for attention not to focus on supply, but on efficient use.
Source: Observadora
