The Minister of the Environment and Energy Transition, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, is heading south on Wednesday to open the new Faro-Olhão sewage treatment plant and the associated Faro-Olhão pumping station.
Not one to miss such an auspicious event, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Carlos Martins, will be present as well Councillors from Faro, Olhão and São Brás de Alportel municipalities.
The new sewage plant is being run by Águas do Algarve, which has overseen the €21 million construction project, co-funded from the EU Sustainability and Efficiency in the Use of Resources programme.
The new facility is designed to treat the output of will about 113,000 locals, a significant chunk of the population of Faro that were served by the old Faro east plant and much of Olhão’s sewage, treated until now at the Olhão west sewage farm.
These old treatment plants involved large lagoons filled with sewage which often had to be drained into the Ria Formosa when they exceeded capacity. These lagoons accounted for the infamous Olhão Stink, for years the bane of locals and those running tourism businesses.
The old sewage plants were part of the Algarve Multi-municipal Sanitation System, with Faro’s coming into operation in 1999 and Olhão’s in 1991.
After two decades of operation a new system was needed as the old system and its pumping stations were at the end of the useful lives.
The contract included the rehabilitation of seven sewage pumping stations which now are part of the systems that flows into the new Faro-Olhão sewage plant.
It is planned that the old lagoons will be turned into a quiet resting place for birds and that nature soon will return to create a bio-diverse environment.
