Portugal bids to fill Europe's biggest reservoir
Date: 11-Feb-02
Country: PORTUGAL
Author: Carlos Alberto Pontes
Prime Minister Antonio Guterres officially closed the floodgates at the $1.7-billion Alqueva dam across the Guadiana river, an action that will flood the valley and cover an area of 250 square kilometres (96.5 square miles) within two years.
"Alqueva is no longer a myth, it's reality. I sincerely never believed I would see the waters begin to fill the reservoir," Guterres said of the project which was first designed in 1957.
"We had to make a break with seemingly irreversible depopulation and desertification in this region," he added.
Alqueva has drawn resentment from many residents of the nearby Aldeia da Luz, who will be forced by rising waters to leave their lifelong homes in the Village of Light, as it is called in Portuguese.
But the villagers will be rehoused and the government has stressed the need to build thousands of kilometres of pipes over the next 20 years to irrigate up to 110,000 square kilometres in the Alentejo region.
A strategic water reserve of 4.15 billion cubic would also buffer Alentejo farmers from frequent droughts and make them less dependent on scratching a living from what wheat, olives and vines they can grow in the region's arid soil.
For the first time, Alqueva would allow Alentejo farmers to grow pricey fruit and horticultural produce, much of which Portugal currently has to import from Spain.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTEST
The ceremony however drew a demonstration from environmental groups, who have for years protested that flooding the valley 160 km (100 miles) southeast of Lisbon will strip Portugal of much of its key flora and fauna.
Environmental group Quercus has said the Alqueva reservoir will drown half of Portugal's holm oak groves, disrupt river life by making the Guadiana saltier, and threatens the habitat of the few remaining Iberian lynxes.
"Europe's biggest slaughter of trees!" one banner read. A plane also flew over the ceremony carrying a banner saying: "We shall not be moved from the 139 quota," which refers to pleas to halt flooding once it reaches a depth of 139 metres, rather than the planned 152 metres.
For many environmentalists, Alqueva is also a white elephant dreamt up by long-dead dictator Antonio Salazar, long before Portuguese reality changed when it joined the European Union in 1986.
Farmers now enjoying EU subsidies have to limit output of traditional irrigation crops like maize, sunflowers or rice.
