WRITTEN QUESTION E-1112/01

by Alexander de Roo (Verts/ALE) and Jorge Moreira da Silva (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(6 April 2001)

Subject: Alqueva Dam, Portugal

The Alqueva dam, located on the Portuguese section of the Guadiana River, is expected to be completely built by the end of 2001. The Portuguese Government plans then to start flooding the area and creating a 250 km2 reservoir (of which 63 km2 in Spain), mainly for irrigation. For that purpose, on February 22 a clearing programme was started that will affect an area of 19 740 ha of one of the most important natural areas in the Southern Iberian Peninsula, dominated by the montado ecosystem, Mediterranean woodland and riparian habitats. The disappearance of these priority habitats will be dramatic for several threatened species of vertebrates. The area is also populated by the Iberian Lynx, as a report financed by LIFE confirms (Instituto da Conservação da Natureza, 1998, Conservation of the Iberian Lynx, LIFE Project No B4-3200/94/767). The Guadiana River is one of the five still existing Portuguese nuclei and the area to be cleared, known as Alcarrache-Gadelim, is part of this nucleus.

The reservoir will inundate 94 % of the Guadiana River-Juromenha habitat site and affect the Special Birds Protection Area of Mourão-Barrancos. This clearing operation, not subjected to an environmental impact assessment and without any of the planned minimisation measures being implemented, was started on the presumption that the dam would be filled up to its full storage level at 152 metres and that water would be needed for the irrigation of an area larger than 110 000 ha and for a planned diversion from the Guadiana to the Sado basin. However, the irrigation scheme was not fully defined (crops, water costs, funding) and the extremely high risk of salinisation of the soil to be irrigated was not considered, nor was this diversion taken into account in the initial plans or subjected to an environmental impact assessment, as required under the EC EIA Directive. Portuguese NGOs called for no clearing above the level of 139 metres, which would save more than half a million trees and important protected habitats, while not precluding any options in the future regarding the actual use of the dam; for clearing to take place in stages, according to needs, and for a debate to be initiated at national and European level on the viability of the irrigation plans in the development of Alqueva.

1. How can the Commission accept that this project can destroy areas which were to be considered priority areas according to the Habitat Directive?

2. Can the Commission make sure that all aspects of the project, including the planned diversion from the Guadiana river to the Sado basin, are fully taken into consideration in the EIA?

3. Does the Commission think that the irrigation plans related to filling the Alqueva dam up to the level of 152 m are ecologically and economically sustainable?

4. What has the Commission done to make sure that the waters filling the Alqueva Dam fulfil the quality targets defined by the Water Framework Directive and the Nitrates Directive?

5. Is it true that the Cohesion Fund co-financed the Alqueva hydrological power plant to compensate for the decision not to co-finance with EU funds?

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(14 June 2001)

The Alqueva dam is part of a multi-purpose project for which Community financing was approved, subject to a number of conditions, in July 1997(1). The Portuguese Government decided, in February 1997, to create an

environmental follow-up Commission (Comissão de Acompanhamento Ambiental das Infraestruturas do Alqueva CAIA) chaired by the Portuguese Environment Ministry, with the participation, among others, of national and regional environmental authorities and of environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This Commission is responsible for the follow-up of the environmental aspects of the project, including the individual Environmental Impact Assessments made for the single components of the global project. The CAIA is also responsible for verifying the efficiency of the minimisation and compensation measures as well as environmental monitoring.

The Commission will continue to follow the project closely to ensure that Community law is correctly applied. This is particularly the case concerning the Alentejo Regional Operational Programme, under which several of the individual projects will be co-financed, and for which the Commission participates in the follow-up commission. The Commission will also continue to ask the Portuguese authorities for all necessary elements to assess the adequate fulfilment of the minimisation and compensation measures that conditioned the approval of the co-financing.

Specifically addressing the questions asked by the Honourable Members:

- The project's Environmental Management Plan includes minimisation and compensation measures, as recommended by the impact studies and by the evaluation commission. It also mentions explicitly that sensitive areas from the nature point of view will be excluded from any future irrigation plans. The Commission has already requested from the Portuguese authorities all the information needed to ensure that the measures included in the Environmental Management Plan are effectively carried out. The state of fulfilment of the conditions for the co-financing will evidently be taken into account also when considering the possible co-financing of individual parts of the project.

- The individual components of the global project, including the irrigation plans and the possible water transfer from the Guadiana basin to the Sado basin, will have to be the object of separate impact assessments under the terms of the Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora(2) and of the Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment(3). The Commission will follow this with particular attention in the framework of the Alentejo Regional Operational Programme for 2000-2006.

- Other alternatives were studied before the Commission's decision on co-financing, and the level of 152 meters was retained as the best option.

- The Water Framework Directive(4) sets the obligation that all waters (rivers, lakes, groundwaters and coastal waters) achieve the objective good status by 2015. It is the responsibility of the concerned Member States (Spain and Portugal in this case) to take the necessary measures to achieve this objective. The Directive sets up a time frame for the implementation of measures to achieve this objective, and the Commission will be attentive to the progress made by Portugal and Spain in this matter. As for the Nitrates Directive(5), it establishes a two-level system: Mandatory measures in so-called nitrate vulnerable zones, and a (voluntary) system of promoting good agricultural practice outside those zones. The Directive does not, however, set obligations to achieve quality objectives within set deadlines; this has only recently been done under the Water Framework Directive.

- In the implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Commission is also carefully checking whether the measures under the Nitrates Directive are included in the good farming practice, constituting a pre-condition for certain aid payments in the framework of the Rural Development Programmes (compensatory allowances). Good farming practice is also a yardstick for the compensation of farmers within the agri-environmental schemes.

- Article 8 of the Commission decision concerning the co-financing includes obligations derived from the Council Directive 91/676/EEC on nitrates. It includes also obligations derived from the Council Directive 91/271/EEC on urban wastewater treatment(6). Concerning water quantity and quality, it should also be noted that, in a letter sent to the former Member of the Commission responsible for regional policy, in March 1997, the Spanish Foreign Minister re-stated the Spanish commitment to abide by the terms of the convention established in 1968 between Spain and Portugal for the use of water in international rivers.

- The Cohesion Fund co-financing is limited to the Alqueva hydroelectric plant, and is aimed at the integration of this plant in the national plan for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

(1) Decision C(97)2350, of 28 July 1997.

(2) OJ L 206, 22.7.1992.

(3) OJ L 175, 5.7.1985.

(4) Directive 2000/60/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of waterpolicy (OJ L 327, 22.12.2000).

(5) Council Directive 91/676/EEC of 12 December 1991 concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources (OJ L 375, 31.12.1991).

(6) Council Directive 91/271/EEC of 21 May 1991 (OJ L 135, 30.5.1991).