Algarve Situation Report Wednesday 6th December 2023
by Mike Evans
A very good day to you all. As we enter the last month of 2023 and the Christmas and New Year festivities it is an opportune time to remind everyone that celebrating the season comes with a lot of risks if you drink and drive. Safe Communities in association with the Friends of the Sao Bras de Alportel Museum held an event with the aim of the gathering was to learn more about the work of the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR) and the Autoridade Nacional de Segurança Rodoviária (ANSR) (National Road Safety Authority) over the Christmas and New Year festive period. There is a nationwide campaign on safe driving about to start on Television and across the media with the message, “it is better to be late than not arrive”
The aim is to reduce the number of deaths on the roads across the holiday period and there will be a large presence of the police on our roads over the next few weeks.
Now a look at some of the stories that have happened in the Algarve in the past week.
PSP detains 14 people in the last week in the region
Last week, the PSP detained 14 people in operations carried out in the Faro District Command area , which encompasses the 16 municipalities of the Algarve, most of them for road crimes, the security force announced . In the period between November 24th and 30th, nine arrests were made for crimes linked to compliance with the highway code, including “four for driving under the influence of alcohol and five for lack of legal licence to drive”, stated the same source in a statement.
The PSP clarified that one arrest was also made for crimes against authority, another for crimes against property (theft and theft) and three judicial arrest warrants were served for drug trafficking, which resulted in the seizure of 220 doses, mostly cocaine and hashish, completed by the PSP.
The security force also noted that it carried out 17 road inspection operations in the main urban centres of the Algarve in the same period, with 1,205 vehicles being inspected”, and carried out radar speed checks on 1,164 vehicles, of which 12 were found to be speeding over the limit.
AFA and Food Bank renew partnership to help those most in need
The Algarve Football Association (AFA) renews, for the fourth consecutive year, its partnership with the Banco Alimentar Contra a Fome do Algarve and is promoting the collection of non-perishable food items to help those most in need, it was announced. Food can be delivered until December 18th at the AFA headquarters, at Complexo Desportivo da Penha, in Faro, from Monday to Friday, between 9:30 am and 6:00 pm.
In the last two campaigns, the AFA raised more than 570 kilos of food for needy families in the region, with the contribution of clubs and affiliated referee groups, sports agents, partners and other communities. All donations will later be delivered, as usual, to the Food Bank warehouses in Faro .
Drought Warning for The Algarve still Dire
The President of Águas do Algarve, António Eusébio, acknowledged that “there is a huge lack of water” in the region and expressed concern for the near future, since water scarcity is the most critical ever. António Eusébio, who participated in the National Meeting of Water Management Entities (ENEG), in Gondomar, described a critical scenario in the dams of the Algarve, which as a whole do not exceed around 56 cubic hectometres (hm3).
“The Algarve needs more than 115 hm3, not for human consumption, which uses 70 to 75 hm3, but for all other necessary purposes. Looking at this scenario, we are going to get less than 10 hm3 from groundwater, there is a lot of water left to go beyond the year 2024”, stated António Eusébio.
In accordance with the person responsible, the Odeleite dam currently has around 26 hm3, after the input of around 10.5 hm3 with the October rains, the Odelouca dam has 8.8 hm3, which added another 500 thousand cubic metres at the time.
In Bravura, the situation is more critical, with the dam close to the dead volume level, a situation that has already happened this year. In Funcho, the water level is around 11 million cubic metres.
Despite the country being at the beginning of the wet period, António Eusébio assumes that the Algarve is experiencing “one of the most critical situations ever in terms of water scarcity” and is concerned with “what might happen”.
For several years, an investment effort has been made to overcome these constraints, now reinforcing an allocation of €170 million from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). The joint plan to mitigate the effects of drought in the region estimates that it will be possible to achieve around five hm3 in agriculture and two in public supply by reusing this water resource.
On the other hand, the desalination plant will produce 16 million cubic metres of freshwater per year.
To these measures are added the capture of the dead volume of the Odeleite dam – fro m450 litres per second and the capture of the Guadiana River.
However, despite large investments, these measures represent around 62 million cubic metres and may not be sufficient if the course of climate change is not reversed.
The person in charge admits, despite every effort that’s being made to meet deadlines, it will be difficult to complete some of these investments by 2026 – such as the desalination plant in Guadiana.
Over a 10-year period, António Eusébio anticipates that other investments of the same order of magnitude will be necessary, including a new desalination plant.
The administrator who participated this afternoon in a round table, which discussed the circular economy combating the threat of climate change, admitted that “measures a little more aggressively in other sectors””, given the critical situation in which the region finds itself.
At the start of ENEG, the vice-president of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), José Pimenta Machado admitted that the water shortage in the Algarve is the “worst ever” and if this scenario continues, in early 2024 it may be necessary to impose limits on consumption.
New water point in Loulé will support firefighting
The construction of the water point and its access path was made with local natural materials. Through the transfer of a plot of land by an owner, and in a joint work with the Association of Forest Producers of Serra do Caldeirão, the City Council of Loulé created a new water point next to the Miradouro do Caldeirão (Sítio do Feitoso), in the parish of Ameixial, informed the municipality.
This structure, located in a retention basin of 6 hectares, with a size of flooded area of 1750m2 and an average height of 5 metres, reinforces the support for air and land means, falling within the Integrated Rural Fire Management System.
The construction of this water point and its access path was made with local natural materials. The work contemplated the creation of crossing zones to safeguard the crossing of combat vehicles, reads the note. The Municipality of Loulé wants to pursue “a concerted strategy in favour of the defence of the forest and that also involves the creation of structures that allow to make the territory more resilient and prepared to respond to situations such as forest fires”.
Help the homeless in the Algarve
Algarvian days may be filled with sunshine, but the nights are now starting to draw in and overnight temperatures dropping, with much colder weather still to come.
Please spare a thought for the homeless men and women who have no option but to sleep on the streets, the numbers of which (according to the Red Cross Portugal) have increased due to unemployment, rising living costs and high rental rates.
In 2019 after a chance encounter with a homeless man at a local petrol station, Anita van Huson started a small campaign to help the homeless organising a Christmas gift of a new sleeping bag and welfare package. By 2021 the campaign had grown, reliant on the generosity of public donations and a few volunteers Anita was able to distribute 159 sleeping bags and welfare packages.
This year, wanting to replicate the 2021 campaign success, we have been in touch with active homeless associations (Red Cross, C.A.S.A, soup kitchens etc) across the Algarve (Lagos – Tavira) to determine how many homeless would benefit from this Christmas bag and package campaign. Times have most definitely got harder and we already have 200 sleeping bag requests with this anticipated now to rise to as many as 250 bags once we hear back from all associations involved. Our primary goal is to distribute a sleeping bag to everyone in need. If we have excess funds to enable everyone to also get a welfare package then that would be a bonus! If any of our readers would like to help, here is how you can do it.
Financial support – cash/paypal/bank transfer to enable us to purchase suitable sleeping bags – compact, >1 kg weight (to ensure warmth) – on average €25 per bag.
2) DONATE – buy suitable sleeping bag(s) or provide excellent quality 2nd hand ones and deliver them to us for distribution.
How companies can help –
3) As above or consider sponsoring the bulk purchase of other essential items for the welfare packages – e.g. 200-250 fleece-lined hats, gloves etc
This year’s campaign is being coordinated by Eve Clifton – please email eacalgarve@gmail.com or call (+351) 932 755 866 for more information and how to donate.
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