Gaia Verde questions intervention on the River Febros

O gaia Verde questioned a cleaning intervention on the banks of the river Febros, in Pedroso (Vila Nova de Gaia), but the Águas de Gaia assured today that it was requested by Civil Protection and complied with the rules.

In a publication on their social networks, the environmental movement referred, on Sunday, to an intervention in the Rio Febros in Pedroso as “environmental damage”, “presented as a desorption action aimed at improving water flow, preventing floods and environmentally valuing the watercourse”.

“ However, by the photographs released, the intervention seems to have implied the widespread removal of the riparian vegetation existing on the margins and, at least partially, of the trees installed there," they say, considering that “the complete removal of the vegetation cover from the margins can have the effect contrary to what is intended”.

The movement points out that, from a legal point of view, “if the intervened areas are part of the National Ecological Reserve (REN), Article 20(1)(e) of Decree-Law No 166/2008 of August 22, it prohibits the destruction of the vegetation coating, except under the legally foreseen exceptions”.

They also state that “the Water Law, which transposes the Water Framework Directive – provides for the cleaning and clearance of the alves as a measure of conservation of the water network, but requires specific desorption plans that guarantee, among other things, the integrity of the beds and margins, the balance of ecosystems and the preservation of fauna and flora”.

Also guidelines of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), recalls the Gaia Verde, indicate that “the intervention should be selective, preserve trees, shrubs and stabilizer roots of the margins, maintain the herbaceous vegetation of the slopes, avoid the total cutting of vegetation and prevent erosion and the consequent silencing”.

To Lusa, the consultant of Águas de Gaia Joaquim Poças Martins said that the intervention took place between October 28 and November 2 and “it was a request of Civil Protection for an emergency action”.

According to the consultant, it was asked to remove the vegetation “from an area close to a bridge that was at risk of rupture”, describing Poças Martins that “the vegetation was so great that you could not even see the bridge”.

“ We are talking about a very short area, of a ten hundred meters, 10, 15 meters, in which the largest vegetation was removed”, points out, even saying that the river in that area “has many infestations, exotic plants, there are some trees inside the river”, also speaking in a photograph “deceiving”.

According to Poças Martins, what Águas de Gaia usually does is “exactly what it says in the APA handbook”, also respecting the rules associated with the National Ecological Reserve (REN).

“So there is no mistake. Therefore, there was an intervention of a dozen meters, and it is much more serious the situation of obstruction of exotic plants that are in the neighborhood than happened in this ten meters ", justified.

Poças Martins also recalled that “the responsibility of this maintenance of rivers is the landowners”, but “what unfortunately happens is that landowners in urban areas do not have the financial capacity to do so”, so Gaia Waters “do what they can to replace those who do not.”.

“We don’t need lessons from anyone on how to treat Ribeiras. We have specialists and we have been doing this for 40 years, we were not born yesterday,” he said.