Huge Portuguese Dam-Building Project Awash in Controversy

In the Alentejo, a parched and largely deserted region that makes up one-third of Portugal, the name Alqueva conjures up the promise of abundant water, plentiful jobs and new wealth.

For others, it means forsaking a rich historical past and wreaking damage on the environment.

Alqueva is a tiny cluster of houses, barely a village, but it is the official name given to a nearby mammoth dam nearing completion on the Guadiana River.

The dam will create what is billed as Europe’s largest man-made lake, a reservoir about the size of Sacramento or the Mediterranean island of Malta.

The $1.7-billion project, funded by the government and the European Union, promises economic growth for one of the poorest regions of the 15-nation EU.

Its promoters say golf courses will replace arid fields and draw wealthy tourists, while irrigation canals weave across the dusty earth to enable large-scale fruit and vegetable production for export to northern European markets.

Paying a High Price for Development

Most people agree that this impoverished region, which is home to only 5% of the country’s 10 million people, must reverse its economic decline and stem migration to the booming coastal cities.

“We need public investment to persuade people to settle here and attract outside investment,” says Ricardo Silva, an agronomist at the government’s Alentejo Regional Development Agency, based in the city of Evora.

But some locals and wildlife protection groups say the price for development is too high.

They point in alarm to what will be lost as the waters rise: More than 1 million oak, olive and eucalyptus trees are to be felled because decaying underwater flora could pollute the reservoir; the ruins of a Roman fortress from the 1st century BC will be lost under the water along with sites from the Neolithic period; the 380 residents of Aldeia da Luz, a quaint rural village, are to be rehoused on another site; the habitats of some protected species of birds will be destroyed; a colony of rare bats is to be moved elsewhere.

“The impact on the environment will be tremendous,” says Jose Paulo Martins, the local representative of Quercus, a Portuguese environmentalist group.

He sighs as he gazes at a colony of storks through a pair of binoculars. Nesting on a treetop close to the river, a couple perform a greeting ritual, clacking their orange-colored beaks in the silence and elegantly stretching their long necks.

“Retain these images, I have to retain these images,” he murmurs to himself, shaking his head. “It’ll be painful when the water starts coming up.”

The dam is due for completion by the end of this year. It should take two years for the reservoir to be filled to a depth of 498 feet.

Environmentalists want the government and EDIA, the company overseeing the project, to stop filling the reservoir at the 456-foot mark and then assess whether there is, in fact, a need for more water.

The reservoir was planned to irrigate 272,000 acres of land for agriculture and tourism.

Opponents of the project say local farmers, most of whom grow cereal crops on small farms that yield little profit, don’t have the know-how to adapt to new types of agriculture and won’t be able to afford the water anyway, though no price has been fixed.

Meanwhile, the project is already enticing investors from neighboring Spain, who are buying up land for orange-tree plantations.

Many at Aldeia da Luz say there was no need for such a large-scale reservoir. They are disheartened by the prospect of losing their homes, part of their family histories.

The town’s oldest resident is Rita Batata, a 90-year-old widow who has spent her working life sewing, farming and gathering honey.

“I’m not against the dam; I’m just against them making it so big. They could have water all the same and we wouldn’t have to go through all this,” she says at the house where she was born, one built by her father early in the last century.

Some Foresee a Flood of Benefits

About two miles away, the new village is a near-replica of the old one, with a church, school and bullring. Around 400 bodies buried at the local cemetery also will be transferred to a new one.

Although there is little hope for a better life at Aldeia da Luz, optimism overflows at Moura, the city nearest the dam. It is already benefiting from more revenue as sightseers and construction workers make a base there.

Joao Fernandes, a deep-tanned 63-year-old farmer who also owns a kiosk in the town center, grows enthusiastic when asked to imagine the Alqueva dam when finished.

“I see irrigation canals, planted fields, people everywhere. I see tourism, I see boats,” he raves, arms waving and eyes dancing to emphasize the words.

“Everything was always dry around here,” he adds. “When the dam is built, the Alentejo will be rich.”

Aderito Serrao, executive director of the EDIA company, is more cautious.

“Alqueva is not a magic wand that will turn all bad things into good,” he says at the company’s headquarters in Beja. “It does have the potential to become a focus for development, as long as it is put to good use.”

“The impact on the environment will be tremendous. . . . It’ll be painful when the water starts coming up.”