46 Port anD the Douro
do Bomfim records that the flood ‘carried away lodges, olive trees and vineyards ... the
river rose with extraordinary rapidity, on the 23rd it reached the lodge here and the iron
work of the Pinhão bridge’.
In the 1950s and 1960s plans were drawn up to harness the force of the river with a
series of monumental dams equipped with hydroelectric stations. The last working barco
rabelo descended the Douro in 1964 and the first dam was completed at Carrapatelo,
just upstream from Oporto, in 1971. Other dams at Bagauste (Régua), Valeira, Pocinho
and Crestuma followed in quick succession, transforming the mighty Douro into a series
of placid finger lakes. Apart from the obvious loss of land and the inconvenience of
rerouting part of the railway and the Régua to Pinhão road, the main concern among
the Douro growers and Port shippers was the possible increase in humidity and the effect
it might have on the vines. In the event, few noticed much difference apart from the
incidence of cold winter fogs which become trapped in the narrow valley during stable
atmospheric conditions.
However, the building of a dam in the Côa valley, a wild and remote tributary in the
Douro Superior, proved to be much more controversial. First mooted by Salazar, the
scheme only began to take shape in the 1980s when EDP (the Portuguese electricity
company) decided to create a reservoir which would cover over 1,700 hectares of land,
including most of Ramos Pinto’s Quinta de Ervamoira. Apart from the ecological
implications, the dam would undoubtedly have transformed the climate in this part of
the Douro where summer temperatures sometimes reach 50°C. Initial protests fell on
deaf ears, with the government of Aníbal Cavaco Silva seemingly determined to go ahead
with the plan. Then in 1995 archaeologists discovered Palaeolithic engravings on the
schistous rocks by the side of the River Côa. Hundreds of pictures of wild animals were
found etched into the rock, testifying to human habitation in the area as far back as
26,000 BC. For a time the authorities refused to give in to demands to halt the dam,
which was by now under construction, suggesting that some of the engravings could be
either copied or moved. A leading article in The Times newspaper in London accused
the Portuguese government of living in the Third World, and in October 1995 the Côa
dam became an election issue with the Socialists promising to put a stop to the project if
elected. Following their victory, construction was indeed halted and the entire Côa valley
opened to visitors as a ‘parque archeologico’ (see page 269). Three years later the valley
was designated as a World Heritage site. The building of another dam downstream in the
Tua valley is now proving equally controversial.
revolution
When the tanks rolled into the streets of Lisbon on the morning of Thursday 25 April 1974,
the establishment was taken by surprise. Salazar had died four years earlier and in the early
1970s his successor, Marcelo Caetano, had begun to liberalise the regime. Caetano’s reforms
were insufficient to satisfy the younger officers in the Portuguese armed forces, who were