The tourist resort, which already has an 18-hole course and now has an expansion project underway - under public consultation until Thursday -, has asked the competent authorities to extend a four-year license that expired on 20 December 2023, said Ricardo Cipriano.

"What is under public discussion is the extension of the deadline for the Environmental Impact Declaration [DIA] that was in force [until December 20]. It was authorised within the scope of the Monte Rei golf course expansion project, a project that which is within the urbanisation plan which has been approved and still in force", explained the mayor.

The councillor of the Algarve municipality stressed that the DIA had been obtained with a favourable opinion conditioned for four years and the Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR), as the competent entity for the decision, requested opinions from the Chamber, the Institute for Conservation of Nature (ICNF) and the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA).

"With regard to the City Council, we understand that, obviously, Monte Rei is a strategic asset for the economic development of the municipality and, given that this expansion project, what is proposed is that it be supplied exclusively with treated wastewater, that is, without recourse to any surface or underground supply source", he explained.

The mayor assured that the Municipality is aware of the difficulty that the region and the municipality are going through due to the drought, but highlighted that the project meets the proposal of the Ministry of the Environment and the Algarve Intermunicipal Community (AMAL) that all golf courses are irrigated, by 2030, with treated wastewater.

Ricardo Cipriano said that, within the scope of this strategy, the "water captured, either through underground aquifers or from surface supplies", such as dams, "is zero or almost zero".

Options

The vice-president of the municipality said there were two possible options for Monte Rei, located in the parish of Vila Nova Cacela, 15 kilometers from the county seat: irrigating the golf course with treated water from the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) from Vila Real de Santo António, which "produces four cubic hectometers per year", or from another WWTP in Tavira.

Ricardo Cipriano said that currently, two golf courses in Castro Marim use one cubic hectometer of the Vila Real de Santo António WWTP, "therefore, there is still scope" for Monte Rei to obtain treated water from that source.