Mayors want concrete actions to preserve the basin in Mondego

Autarchs of Viseu, Guarda and Coimbra today defended the need for concrete actions to preserve the river basin of the river Mondego that, consequently, reach the surrounding areas, including the Serra da Estrela.

“ When something hurts the river Mondego, it hurts the entire region Centro ", the president of the Municipal Council of Guarda, Sergio Costa, called at the opening session of the first congress "Mondego, what future for this watershed?" that takes place today, in Viseu.

So that the river and its basin do not feel hurt, Sergio Costa defended the need for “concrete actions of preservation” and, “because the world of politics”, where it assumes that it is included, “tries to postpone the solutions”.

At the opening session of this first congress the presidents of the Chambers of Viseu, João Azevedo, Guarda, Sérgio Costa, and also the councilman with the folder of the Environment of Coimbra, Luís Francisco Filipe, and the leader of the Munda – Movement in Defense of the River Mondego, António Minhoto.

The three mayors stressed the importance of “policies followed by concrete actions” not only in the Mondego River and its basin and margins, but also “in the surrounding forest areas that have suffered forest fires” in recent years and which, consequently, “end up hurting Mondego”.

Sérgio Costa focused on the fires of 2022, which affected the Serra da Estrela, and “after four years no reforestation has been made” and “the only thing that happened was the natural regeneration of the forest, nothing more”.

“ And the Serra da Estrela is not a natural landscape. It is substantially a humanized landscape. Since the intensive shepherding that existed and that we need to go back to all the human work that has been done there and for that it is necessary people, but we do not accept the false choice between fixing people or protecting nature, it is a joint work ", defended.

The mayor of Guarda recalled that in the storms of February “there was ash and burnt wood sailing on the Mondego River of fires that occurred” and, in this sense, emphasized the need for “more effective and immediate work after the occurrences”, but “more so in the prevention and preservation” of nature.

With this, the mayor indicated the changes in the “climate that has already changed, is not future, is now and the proof of this is that November is already there and has not yet rained” and, also for this reason, he argued that “water is the most precious good of this century”.

“And nothing is being done in that sense. People won't worry until they turn on the tap and there's no water coming out, and it's not breaking down the duct, it's just a lack of water. If we do not have the capacity to store rainwaters, it goes away ", indicated.

In this sense, Sergio Costa praised the governmental decision to move forward with the Girabolhos Dam, but highlighted the “necessity of the Assedasse dam claimed for decades and is not a whim, it is a necessity” for the Guard region “to have more than twice as much storage capacity” of water.

The Guarda has several watersheds, from the river Zêzere, where the river beach of Valhelhas is located, and in the village of Vale de Estrela is a basin where there are three rivers: the Mondego, the Douro and the Tagus.

“There is a professor who specializes in these water issues who has already told me that if we drop a drop at a specific point in the basin nobody knows which of these three watercourses follows,” Sérgio Costa said, justifying the “importance that the region has” in water issues.

The councilman of the Chamber of Coimbra Luís Francisco Filipe said that “a long time ago” are discussed “imperfect solutions” for the watershed of Mondego and, therefore, “it is necessary to act and take steps, it is necessary to do, to demand, but also to recognize” what has already been done, remembering the last floods in February, during the storms.

“We do not want [the mayors] to be less addressees of the decisions that are taken. We want to be actors and not extras, we want to have a voice, we want to have responsibility and contribute to the knowledge of the territory ", defended Luís Francisco Filipe, praising the organization of the congress.

From the Munda movement, António Minhoto warned that “the problem of contamination of the waters due to the mines” that existed in the region, namely those of uranium in Urgeiríça, in the municipality of Nelas, in the district of Viseu, and that “we really need to work on the solution of the consequences” they left.