New associations ask them to study alternatives to Lisbon airport or as soon as possible | Environment
Nine environmental associations gather this Tuesday morning at Terreiro do Paço, in Lisbon, to ask that the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) process of the airport plan for the Lisbon region begin as soon as possible. The purpose of this process is to “compare above all the environmental impact from different locations and stages of development rather than assessing the environmental impact of a specific project”, explains the Zero association to PÚBLICO. Representatives of the associations consider that “no more should be lost”.
“As alternatives and comparisons, the SEA elaboration process itself (specifically its Scope definition phase) must be disclosed, as it is technically correct, and they were not presented previously”, they also warn as associations in a statement after a press conference. . This group includes the Almargem, ANP
WWF, A Rocha, Fapas, GEOTA, LPN, Quercus, SPEA and Zero.
It is a process that can take between 12 and 15 months, which is “perfectly reasonable”, Domingos Leitão, director of SPEA, said during a press conference. It is not time-consuming, he says, and “allows you to gain time, grounds and decision-making capacity”. Zero president Francisco Ferreira added: “It is possible to have a decision by the end of 2023.” And it says that this assessment has already been requested by the associations since January 2018 and that, since then, this “legal obligation has had no effect until now”.
“Evaluation Conference Environmental Assessment Test of Independent Duration and with an Independent Review Meeting Evaluation Committee of All Independent Events” , João Dias Coelho, at the end of the evaluation. “It’s not just about the environment, but also about accessibility and the connection to the railway, the danger of the location, the economic costs and context. All this has to be considered, it is not to be solved overnight”, he argues.
Montijo is “an environmental aberration”
These non-governmental environmental associations (NGOs) also form a coalition to challenge in court the validity of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on the Montijo airport project. This was done without being sure just “updated and quantified”, namely in terms of impact and why climate, explains activist Acácio Pires, from the Zero association. Still, there are “many other doubts about the quality of the information available”.
“For us, Montijo is an option that cannot be made, it is a non-option at all levels”, says Quercus vice-president, Marta Leandro, to PÚBLICO at the end of the conference. To have an airport, “Montijo is an absolute aberration from the environmental and biodiversity and in terms of security”. It says that there should be no “actual airport capacity increase” and that it should have a rail complement as much as possible.
The current Lisbon airport “is a very serious public health problem, it has a great impact on the quality of life of thousands of citizens in the municipality of Lisbon and in the municipality of Loures because of the high noise and air quality” and is also a risk in terms of aeronautical safety for being so close to civilization, says Marta Leandro. “It’s almost like having an open pit coal mine right next to the city.”
In the SEA procedure, which is mandatory by law, there are three essential pillars: “it must be attributed to a public, independent and technically credible entity”; it must “have the public interest as an essential pillar of the process”; and must “be participatory and transparent from the beginning”. This will result in an assessment that allows policy makers to make a “reasoned decision, legally sound, environmentally responsible and safeguarding the public interest”. These organizations defend that they should be heard in the initial phase of the process and believe that “civil society as a whole has not been taken into account”.
The objective is that the guidelines resulting from this assessment are not then “submitted to public discussion and that citizens express themselves, because it is only the political class that has to make a decision here”, says João Dias Coelho. And why hasn’t this been done yet? “There is a lot of noise and there are a lot of pressure groups”, summarizes the president of GEOTA. “There are no brilliant places that make up everything, now we have certainly chosen the one that creates the least damage to the environment and which most promotes the national economy. That’s what we aim for.”
bet on the railroad
In order for the process to begin as soon as possible, the associations have already established a series of “critical decision-making factors”, such as the order of nature conservation and integrity, territorial planning, safety and the capacity of air transport operations, the public safety (in terms of air and noise quality, for example) or the accessibility and land transport system. In addition to these manufacturers, the organizations argue that “exclusion limits” should also be considered, beyond which a possible location for an airport is no longer considered.
And, thus, he argues that “the use of the Montijo air base as a complementary or main airport is unfeasible from the point of view of aeronautical safety, environmental, protection of biodiversity and public health”. And they say it is imperative to “articulate the airport plan for the Lisbon region with the national railway plan”.
The nine associations also argue that the “maintenance of the current Humberto Delgado is compatible with compliance with national and amended legislation on noise” and that its expansion “makes the problem more serious instead of solving it”. In addition, “in addition to the Lisbon airport solution, it must be connected with metropolitan, regional, national and international solution networks”.
“We would like journeys of up to 600 kilometers to be by rail, not least because they knew that most of the connections are Lisbon-Porto and Lisbon-Madrid,” said Quercus vice-president Marta Leandro. But “the necessary speed and political will in relation to the railroad is not seen”.
At the end of June, the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, Pedro Nuno Santos, was behind a controversial decision on the future Lisbon airport: an order from the ministry that oversees announced the decision to move forward with an airport in Montijo in the short term. term and in Alcochete as a long term solution. The decision put an end to the SEA process and did not deal with the PSD, as previously proposed. The order was eventually revoked, as the prime minister, António Costa, had determined.
This press conference now comes at a time when a public discussion to reach a final decision “has intensified and the search for the wrong locations has been made, comparing rather than focusing on the debate over the criteria that should be presented to a wrong decision. ”, explains Zero. The advertisements will still be made requests for an audience to the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and also the PSD, as well as a note on the urgency of this environmental assessment sent to all parliamentary groups.