Mértola backs new Alqueva dams as environmentalists demand halt

Mértola council has welcomed plans for two new Alqueva-linked dams on tributaries of the Guadiana, calling them “structural” projects for local development in one of Portugal’s most water-stressed regions.

The municipality, led by Socialist mayor Mário Tomé, says the proposed dams on the Terges/Cobres and Carreiras rivulets mark “a decisive moment” for the future of the territory – promising greater water security, economic support and stronger resilience to climate change.

The projects are being advanced by EDIA, the company managing the Alqueva multi-purpose development, and are included in the government’s highly-controversial “Água que Une” water strategy (described by critics as spelling “environmental and social disaster (…) favouring agribusiness”, banks, construction and real-estate).

The two dams are planned downstream of the Alqueva-Pedrógão system, in the Beja and Mértola areas, with the stated aim of increasing the resilience of the Alqueva system.

EDIA has already launched a public tender for the execution project and environmental impact assessment for the Terges/ Cobres dam, covering the municipalities of Beja and Mértola. The contract is valued at €990,000, plus IVA. Bids are open until July 20, and the contract has an 18-month execution period.

A similar tender for the Carreiras dam, in Mértola, is expected to be published in Diário da República within about a month, according to EDIA president José Pedro Salema.

Mértola council adds that it has long argued for new water infrastructure during the public consultation on Portugal’s National Water Plan – proposing dams on the Carreiras, Terges/ Cobres, and Oeiras rivulets.

Mayor Mário Tomé said proposals “consistently and technically” defended by the municipality were now beginning to take shape, with the goal of securing “more water, more resilience and more future for Mértola”.

But environmental association ZERO has fiercely opposed the projects, calling for an immediate suspension of the tenders, and a formal government commitment NOT to build new dams on Guadiana tributaries.

ZERO also wants an independent post-evaluation of the Alqueva scheme before any new hydraulic works are approved in the Guadiana basin.

The association argues that studies for large infrastructure projects in Portugal too often serve to legitimise political decisions already taken, rather than genuinely assess impacts and alternatives.

The environmentalists pooh-pooh  EDIA’s argument that the new dams could store winter floodwaters and release them in summer to maintain ecological flows in the lower Guadiana.

According to ZERO, the rivulets in question are intermittent watercourses in a region where climate projections point to lower rainfall and more irregular flows. Building new reservoirs, it argues, means investing in infrastructure where water yield is likely to decline over time.

The group also warns that creating more storage capacity risks enabling further expansion of intensive irrigated agriculture, instead of forcing a more sustainable management of Alqueva.

“The only way to guarantee agreed ecological flows for the international stretch of the Guadiana is to ensure sustainable management of the Alqueva system,” ZERO emphasises, arguing that water-intensive uses (generally monocultures) must be limited, not ‘accommodated’.

Sources: Rádio Campanário/ LUSA/ ZERO