The City Council of Santiago do Cacém and the Campilhas and Alto Sado Regante Association (ARBCAS) signed, on April 19, at the headquarters of this Association, a protocol within the scope of the projects to reinforce water to the Campilhas dam through the connection Alqueva and carrying out the modernization of the irrigation system, budgeted at 836 thousand euros.
The Municipality finances the non-funded part, which represents 5% of the total value, of these two implementation projects, both important for irrigated agriculture in the region.
The Mayor of Santiago do Cacém, Álvaro Beijinha, stated that these projects “are fundamental to the future of agriculture in our Municipality. Naturally, the Municipality could not fail to join and be part of the solution, especially when it comes to the project to connect the Campilhas dam to Alqueva through the Morgavel channel, which the Municipality and ARBCAS have been defending for so long. .”
The signed protocol “guarantees financing by the City Council of the amount that is not guaranteed by Community Funds.” The commitment aims to “support ARBCA in taking these projects forward, which are decisive for irrigated agriculture to continue to exist in the Municipality.”
Álvaro Beijinha highlighted that this is another step towards achieving this objective, “with the Association awarding the designer to carry out the study, we hope that progress will be made in the near future and the work will be completed.”
The President of the Board of Directors of ARBCAS, Rui Veríssimo Baptista, explained that with these projects “on the one hand, we increase the resilience of existing systems by strengthening the water supply through new sources, in this case through the connection of Alqueva to the Campilhas reservoir and, on the other, we improved the efficiency of existing water distribution systems, moving from open-air gravity irrigation systems to pressure irrigation systems, increasing efficiency and reducing water losses by 2,000 ha”. In this way “water is guaranteed in the Campilhas reservoir, which has suffered brutally from the drought that has meant that there has been no irrigation for the last three years, as it is empty.”
The importance of this connection and modernization “is to have more investment from farmers and give the territory another dynamic, and thus stop desertification.” The next step, after executing the projects, will be to launch competitions to carry out the work. “At this stage we will see which Community Fund has financing availability, but I am sure we will be able to do it,” said Rui Veríssimo Baptista.
Regarding the support from the City Council, Rui Veríssimo Baptista highlights the “good cooperative relations between the two entities.”
These implementation projects result from an ARBCAS application to PDR2020-measure 3.4.2, representing an investment of €836,700, 95% financed, as part of the action and dynamics necessary to combat climate change.
