The dredging of the Guadiana river will go ahead under an agreement singed between the Portuguese and Spanish.
The Portuguese authorities and the Junta de Andalucía announced today the dredging work will start after this summer season with a goal of clearing to a depth of 3.5 metres to improve dramatically the navigability of the border river.
The memorandum of understanding that enables Portugal’s Regional Ministry of Public Works and Housing to start dredging the Guadiana river, focusing on areas of the river only where there are currently major navigational difficulties, was signed last Friday, according to the Committee for Coordination and Regional Development of the Algarve.
"The Andalucían Agency for Ports will do the hiring for the dredging work, budgeted at €1 million, which will remove the build up of sediment in the mouth of the Guadiana where navigation for vessels from both Portugal and Spain is poor,' according to the CCDR-Algarve.
By dredging to a depth of 3.5 metres, around 50,000 cubic metres of material will be removed. The sand can be dumped on nearby beaches and other organic and non-sand material will be dumped out to sea.
In addition to the memorandum, the Portuguese and Spanish authorities also have signed an amendment to their joint application for EU funds under the Operational Programme for Cross-border Cooperation, Spain - Portugal to ensure the work can go ahead with European funding.
The president of CCDR/A, David Santos, runs the agency that brokered this cross border deal between the Portuguese and Andalucían authorities which covers institutional, cultural, sporting and economic relations between the two border regions.
The agreement for dredging now is concluded and was signed by the Director of the Public Ports Agency of Andalucía, Miguel Paneque and the general director of Natural Resources at the Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture, Miguel Sequeira. What could go wrong?
