The Ministry of the Environment is taking possession of protected land on which to dump pulp industry sludge that will be dredged up from the riverbed of the Tagus.The Ministry will pay compensation of more than €37,000 to the land owner who is not at all happy with the use to which his property is to be put.
Work is due to begin in the second half of April, with the erection of infrastructure on the formerly protected area near the river bank.
The land is in the highly protected area of the Portas de Ródão Natural Monument and was selected by the Ministry of the Environment as a convenient site on which to the store the sludge to be dredged from the bottom of the Tagus in a cleaning operation that responds to the illegal dumping of pulp mill effluent by Celtejo which was caught out after a blanket of foam covered a section of the river (see picture).
The request for this land already had a green light after the Council of Ministers declared on 22 March that its use was of public and national interest.
This solution is seen by the Ministry as an "alternative route" as no agreement could be reached with the owner.
Raquel Baptista Lopes, the daughter of the owner of the five-hectare site, was contacted by government and immediately contested the land grab.
"Environmental preservation is necessary," Raquel Lopes told Público. My father agrees with the criticisms already made by the environmental associations Quercus and Zero. (HERE)
"How can the Minister says that this land has no environmental value, when it consists of flora that justified its categorisation as a protected area?" asks Raquel Baptista Lopes, noting the juniper, ash, willow, poplar and holm oak trees that are growing there.
"They will destroy meadows and native species that are now beginning to bloom. There is a juniper of more than three metres and olive trees certainly older than my father who was born in 1937," said Lopes, pointing out the land is National Ecological Reserve and in a protected area.
The Natural Monument of Portas de Ródão was classified in 2009, thus being subject to protected area rules, one of which is that there can be no changes "of the morphology of the soil and of the vegetation cover," where the "deposition or waste," is strictly prohibited.
Raquel Lopes says the sludge should be placed on land outside the protected area, particularly on properties owned by pulp companies such as Celtejo which is responsible for the emission of 90% of the toxic effluents discharged into the river.
The owner argues that the Government should study the alternative proposed by the ProTejo movement, which suggested the use of a submersible pump that sucks the sludge, not into large bags like those that will be used, but into smaller containers.
The Ministry of the Environment has not clarified whether this option was studied or not, stating only that "the operation required extremely rigorous technical planning and care."
