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ARCHIVED - 1,600 hectares of unauthorized irrigation farming identified in the Campo de Cartagena
At last the CHS are preparing to report illegal farming practices to the Murcia government
Many people will be of the opinion that it has been a very long time coming, but it is reported in regional newspaper La Verdad on Wednesday that the CHS water infrastructures administration body is finally preparing to send information early next month regarding illegal irrigation farming in the Campo de Cartagena to the regional government of Murcia early next month.
This information is said to identify 1,600 hectares of land on which irrigation is being used without authorization, and could lead not only to heavy fines being imposed but also to the agricultural activity on the land being forced to end, as specified in legislation passed by the regional government to protect the Mar Menor almost 2 years ago and officially published in the Official State Bulletin in June 2018. Runoff from the crop fields of the Campo de Cartagena containing nitrates and fertilizers, it should be remembered, is held largely responsible for the deterioration of the marine environment of the Mar Menor over recent years, a situation which was exacerbated by the gota fría flooding in September and which was made horribly apparent by the appearance of tens of thousands of dead fish and crustaceans on the beaches at the northern end of the lagoon earlier this month.
Ecologists’ organizations have been denouncing this kind of illegal farming for years, and last year a report compiled by ANSE and the WWF concluded that in the Campo de Cartagena there are over 12,000 hectares of land on which irrigation is used without authorization. Their study included the use of satellite photography which shows how the amount of farmland in the area has grown by 50,000 hectares, much of it not officially designated as being for agricultural use, since the Tajo-Segura water supply canal was brought into operation 40 years ago.
Just as there has been a boom in the intervening period regarding the construction of tourist accommodation and developments, the Tajo-Segura heralded the start of a period of unprecedented growth in crop farming in the Region of Murcia as the availability of water suddenly made intensive large-scale crop cultivation a possibility in the fertile but, prior to 1979, often dry soil of the Campo de Cartagena. Since then the amount of irrigated land has increased 10-fold.
The law passed in 2018 establishes that farmland located outside the permitted limits will be restored to either non-irrigated agriculture or natural vegetation.
In May of this year it was specified that a total of 3,622.28 hectares of land was under specific investigation, and the latest news is that a little under half of that figure, 1,600 hectares, has been found to be illegal in the Mar Menor area.
For those demanding action to limit irrigation farming and to protect the Mar Menor this news will be welcome, but at the same time it will doubtless fall short of their expectations and hopes. The figure of 3,600 hectares which have been investigates represents only 1.5 per cent of the legally irrigatable area in the Segura basin (262,000 hectares), while some estimates reach a figure of 20,000 hectares of unauthorized irrigation in the Campo de Cartagena alone.
This results in nitrates from fertilizers making their way into the Mar Menor not only via runoff, but also after filtering through the soil into the vast aquifer which lies beneath the Campo de Cartagena. Some of the water in the aquifer, which is now estimated to contain around 300,000 tons of nitrates, ends up in the lagoon, and it is known that many agriculturalists drill bore holes into the supply to pump it up for use on their land. That water has to be treated before it is usable, using hidden desalination machinery, and is then distributed by the use of underground pipes not visible to the naked eye: the CHS acknowledges that for years around 1,000 have been extracting water without authorization, but little action has been taken over the last four decades to prevent it as the authorities have effectively turned a blind eye.
The exact figures regarding this calamity are not certain. The CHS estimates that 5 cubic hectometres of water runs off into the Mar Menor every year while some investigators believe that the figure is as high as 68 hm3. But what is clear is that the identification of 1,600 hectares of unauthorized irrigation farming will do no more than scratch the surface of the problem and that far more is needed if there is to be any possibility of the fragile ecosystem of the Mar Menor surviving.
Images: ANSE / WWF
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