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ARCHIVED - Murcia government commits 90 personnel to clean Mar Menor beaches
There has been considerable negative press coverage this week of the condition of beaches in the Mar Menor
The regional government says that it has taken the decision to contract personnel due to the “inaction” of the national government
This week the Mar Menor has been a high- profile topic in the news due to the worsening condition of the lagoon following the series of heavy storms which began with one of the worst Gota Fría on record last September.(click to see a background document about the Gota Fría).
During the two days of torrential rain which left vast swathes of the region flooded, millions of litres of mud and debris poured into the lagoon, the stain of red mud spreading right into the centre of this 70 square kilometre expanse of saltwater, and at the time, nobody was in any doubt that this would be a “complicated spring for the lagoon”. Since then two further episodes of rain have caused millions of litres of “sweet” or non-saline water to flow into the lagoon via ramblas and water control networks, carrying with it mud from the agricultural areas surrounding the lagoon, charged with agricultural nitrates and fertilisers, washed from the soil.
As the water warms up the result is what everybody feared and nobody wants; the Mar Menor is slowly turning green, the warmer and shallower fringes of Lo Pagán the first to show, the green stain slowly working around to Santiago de la Ribera and on along the coast to Cartagena and Los Alcázares.
This week residents of Santiago de la Ribera have vociferously complained about the smell and froth caused by rotting vegetation and associations representing residents of Los Urrutias and Los Nietos have been up in arms about the failure of the authorities to remove the accumulated debris, silt and algae from their corner of the lagoon for the last few weeks.
This week the decision to open the beaches as we move into phase 2 of the de-escalation process has once more brought the topic to the fore and as it is also possible that Murcia may be allowed to welcome tourists from other areas of Spain earlier than 22nd June due to its positive Covid figures, beaches have suddenly become top priority.
The regional government cannot afford to face criticism for inaction as so many businesses face financial ruin this summer due to the Covid shutdown, so the decision has been taken to put the endless arguments about who is financially responsible for rectifying the long-term problems on the sidelines and for the regional government to send in cleaning teams to minimise the immediate impact of the algae.
The situation of who has competency for what in the Mar Menor is complicated; the regional government, CHS, local councils and national government all have different responsibilities and for a long time have been passing the buck from one to another, attempting to avoid spending their own budgets and apportioning responsibility onto one another. Part of the long-term problems facing the Mar Menor is this inability to agree upon the allocation of responsibilities and enforce it, as the sums of money required run into many millions of euros.CLICK HERE for a detailed background document explaining the complex issues behind the current situation
In an attempt to gain some common consensus from the councils surrounding the Mar Menor (San Pedro del Pinatar, San Javier, Los Alcázares and Cartagena) which come from a variety of political persuasions (PP, PSOE and the complicated situation of the Mayoress of Cartagena who was PSOE but was kicked out of the party for pacting with the PP after the last election) these councils have joined with the regional government and other bodies to create a Mar Menor Commission, which seeks to establish common ground and share responsibilities to try and resolve the long-term problems faced by the lagoon.
Earlier this week Cartagena City Council began a legal process called “un requerimiento por inactividad” which translates loosely as “a request for inactivity” and is a document produced prior to seeking legal recourse to oblige an administrative body to comply with its obligations. In this case the council intends to try and force both the regional government and the national government via the costas department (Demarcación de Costas del Estado) to fulfil their obligations to the residents of the municipality and remove both the sludge and accumulated organic materials as well as the dried mud from the southern beaches of the Mar Menor. The council closed off beaches on Tuesday in Los Urrutias and Punta Brava following the decision of residents to directly pressure the highest representative of the Spanish government in the region, the Government Delegate, to attend a meeting.
Today the regional government has responded by sending in a total of 90 manual workers, divided into 18 cleaning groups and contracted for a period of 15 working days to clean up the organic waste and sludge from the shores of the Mar Menor beaches.
San Javier and Cartagena each have six groups of 5 people, and Los Alcázares and San Pedro del Pinatar each have three teams of 5.
The Director General of the Mar Menor, Miriam Pérez,went along to see the start of the cleaning works on Thursday morning and took the opportunity to criticise the national government, saying that the measures taken "derive, to a large extent, from the non-compliance by the Government of Spain of its obligations and from its inaction” and that the regional government was considering “sending the bill” to the national government.
On Sunday she had said that the central government is "the only competent administration for the removal of dry and mud in the Mar Menor, and which can prevent the stagnation of water and the decomposition of algae ».
This, she says, is defined in Title VI of Law 22/1988, of July 28, relating to coastal management, which clarifies the distribution of powers in matters of maritime-terrestrial public domain, and which highlights that the State must undertake any actions at sea and inland waters, as well as for the regeneration and recovery of beaches.
In addition to this contract, the regional government says that it is budgeting 1.1 million euros to contract cleaning teams for the Mar Menor over a period of 16 months the bureaucratical processes for which ”are in an advanced phase”. This will include a marine cleaning boat and divers as well as shore teams.
The government also stated that since 2017, it has removed more than 9,200 m3 of organic material from the Mar Menor, 3,400 m3 relating directly to the 2019 Gota Fría and the floods which followed it.
The images on this article were taken as the Director General visited the Cartagena municipality beaches in the company of Vice-Mayoress Noelia Arroyo (PP) who is chair of the Mar Menor Commission.
She has issued a statement thanking the regional government on behalf of the Cartagena municipality for paying for this resource after the “negligence” of the national government (PSOE).
Unfortunately, the topic is likely to continue to be prominent in the news for the next few weeks as the weather warms up. The teams will ensure that the fringes of the lagoon are clear for bathers, but the stain of green and yellow algae can clearly be seen further out in the waters on the photographs supplied by Cartagena show, and this is likely to spread further as the waters warm. It’s difficult to clear the algae from deeper waters and is an endless task.
At the moment the water quality is perfectly safe for bathers, although the algae and silt in some areas makes it unpleasant.
Red flags on a beach indicate that bathing is not advisable in this area, and no lifeguards will be on hand until the middle of June when the tourism infrastructure for the summer season is put in place as it is every year.
There is a link above to the detailed background document analysing the problems in the Mar Menor. Anyone reading it will clearly understand that the problems are complex, the question of responsibility is more complex and the topic of how the problems can be resolved is even more complex.
Join the Mar Menor group on Facebook for info about Los Alcázares, San Javier, San Pedro del Pinatar, Torre Pacheco, La Unión and Cartagena and keep up to date with all the latest news and events in the Mar Menor: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MarMenorNewsAndEvents/
