Rui Cristina, mayor of Albufeira, has ordered a halt to work on the desalination plant being built near Rocha Baixinha beach. However, the Environment Minister insisted this Friday, 30 October, that “not a single machine has stopped” and that she will not take part in “political games”.
In a video posted on social media early this afternoon, the mayor, who was elected for Chega and is currently under investigation by prosecutors on multiple accounts, announced the embargo, citing a “breach of the Municipal Master Plan (PDM)”.
“I want this solution to be delivered with respect for the law, for the environment and for those who live in our municipality,” he said in a statement accompanying the video.
The announcement came whilst Maria da Graça Carvalho, Minister for the Environment and Energy, was visiting Faro, where journalists put the question to her. According to the minister, the embargo may not be an embargo at all.
“It’s an embargo on the land. The works haven’t stopped. I need to look at it properly, but from what I’ve been told, it is an embargo on the land and not on the works,” she stressed. The minister did not explain the technical difference between an embargo on the land and an embargo on the works.
However, Carvalho did not hold back in her criticism of the mayor. “Don’t count on me for tricks and petty political games that delay solving the Algarve’s problems,” she said.
“That’s a bit of what we’re seeing here [political games]. In any case, the mayor’s video has one advantage: it doesn’t say he is against [the desalination plant],” she added.
In the video, Cristina did indeed call for the solution to be delivered “with respect for the law, for the environment and for those who live in our municipality”.
“We are therefore demanding that the project be corrected, with a longer outfall pipe and brine discharged at a greater depth, further from the coast,” he said.
The minister, for her part, insisted she won’t give up on “solving the Algarve’s problems”.
“The region is 30 years behind in solving its problems. One thing worries me a great deal: the Algarve has water, with 72% availability, but other parts of the country also had plenty a few months ago, and now we are becoming concerned because it hasn’t rained,” she clarified.
“I hope all the mayors will join us in finding solutions for people,” she concluded.
Source: Sul Informação
Photo credit: SAPO
