The Portuguese Association for Water Distribution and Drainage (APDA) today assured that laws and regulations protect the population and ensure “high standards of quality and control” of water for the “vast majority” of consumers.
The assurance, in a statement, comes in response to the alleged lack of public control of the water consumed by more than 800,000 Portuguese, reported “by some media outlets,” which could generate “unwarranted social and public health concerns.”
Explaining how water sector management and regulation works in Portugal, which operates “under clear rules, with defined technical and legal responsibilities,” APDA recalls the latest statistics indicating that the public water network covers between 96% and 99% of Portuguese homes.
Reports of “878,000 Portuguese” who consume water without public control do not mean people are drinking untreated or dangerous water due to lack of regulation, APDA clarifies, explaining that in these cases include demographic situations such as dispersed rural localities, populations that have a nearby network but chose not to connect, or fountains or local intakes.
The most relevant will be the systems operated by water-supply cooperatives, often handed to the management of parish councils, “which operate outside the classic models of municipalized service,” and in this group are concentrated “some of the most technically fragile situations,” such as aged infrastructures or deficient treatment, among others.
“However, it is important to emphasize that these situations do not arise from a legal vacuum or the non-existence of an institutional framework, but rather from management models historically tolerated, small-scale, with limited technical and financial capacity, which today prove ill-suited to the current regulatory, sanitary and environmental requirements,” APDA says in the statement.
The association explains that the mention of about 15% of homes outside the “public control” results mainly “from service organization factors, local choices and institutional legacies, and not from a structural failure of the national water regulation system.”
APDA stresses that this is not a “generalized systemic vulnerability,” but rather “specific territorial pockets that require progressive integration, technical reinforcement and greater coordination with regulated public systems.”
Talking about large populations without water control “incorrectly assumes that the absence of connection to the grid implies lack of regulatory protection, which is not the case,” clarifies APDA, adding that even in alternative situations (fountains or local systems), there are standards governing quality and user information, “although they may require additional technical interventions.”
