ZERO considers the announcement of the Girabolhos dam “inappropriate and manipulative”

The environmental organization ZERO considers that the announcement of the Girabolhos dam is “untimely and manipulative” and that this construction will be a strategic error that does not eliminate the risk of flooding and will divert resources from other effective solutions.

ZERO reacted in this way to the Government’s announcement that it had instructed the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) to launch the public tender for the construction and operation of the Girabolhos dam by the end of March.

And he regrets that this measure is being presented as a solution to the problem of flooding in the Mondego river basin, at a time when the Coimbra region is facing immediate consequences of extreme precipitation phenomena.

“This proposal constitutes a false solution, technically questionable and politically exploited at a time of great fragility for the affected populations,” says the statement released by the organization.

For ZERO, “hydraulic infrastructures of this scale require a serious analysis, with decision-making processes supported by updated studies that cover aspects such as hydrology, territorial planning, cost-benefit analyzes and environmental impacts, all of them distanced from the emotional context caused by recent events, and can never be replaced by misleading political announcements in a crisis context”.

This organization considers that, “between the project, environmental assessment, financing and execution of the work, it will take several years until the eventual entry into operation, therefore not responding to the immediate needs of the affected populations and therefore, it will not make any sense for it to be presented as a solution to the emergency we are experiencing”.

In the statement he explains how the construction of this dam would not solve the flood episodes: “Considering the precipitation data in the period between February 3rd and 12th, at the Mangualde/Chão de Tavares meteorological station, located close to the site planned for the construction of the dam, accumulated precipitation values ​​of 315.6 liters per square meter were recorded over nine days”.

“Applying this value to the area of the hydrographic basin associated with the infamous dam, estimated at 980 km2 (does not reach 15% of the total area of the Mondego river basin), we obtain a potential volume of around 309.3 million cubic meters of water, a value greater than the total storage capacity of the dam, which is 244.7 million cubic meters (193 hm3 of Girabolhos + 51.7 hm3 in the Bogueira counter embalse)”.

For ZERO, this means that, “in an idealized scenario of total retention, which in reality would never occur, the dam could theoretically fill in around seven days in a similar precipitation scenario”.

And he argues that “absolute priority must be given to rapid response measures, the protection of populations and the rapid mitigation of impacts, and any reflection on fundamental solutions must take place within a specific time frame, with technical distance and effective public participation so that there is no risk of opting for wrong and irreversible choices made at a manifestly inappropriate time”.