Date Published: 19/11/2019
ARCHIVED - 360,000 sign petition demanding solutions in the Mar Menor
ARCHIVED ARTICLE 
Slow progress towards pumping harmful substances out of the Rambla del Albujón
While the regional and national governments continue to disagree over who should do what in order to regenerate and protect the marine environment of the Mar Menor a petition containing 360,000 signatures was handed on Monday to Fernando López Miras, the president of the Murcia government, demanding solutions.
The petition was the result of a merger among three separate campaigns launched on change.org by Andrés Martínez, Raquel Ros and Cristina Marín, and it appears that the majority of those signing are signally uninterested in who implements solutions as long as they are implemented. It is a source of increasing frustration that the regional government insists on pointing out that it is the national government’s responsibility to take action in ramblas, seas and aquifers, while political opponents point out that the Murcia government is responsible for the environment, land use and tourism: the point the signatories are trying to make is that both administrations have to agree if anything is to be done at all.
Meanwhile, as if to illustrate the point, plans to begin pumping water out of the Rambla del Albujón, one of the runoff channels along which most water containing harmful nutrients makes its way to the Mar Menor, have unfortunately run into delays. It now appears that administrative and procedural requirements will mean the newly repaired pumping system and pipeline remaining inoperative until March unless the CHS water infrastructures body (dependent on the PSOE national government) and the PP Murcia government department of Agriculture reach an agreement with irrigation farmers to bring it forward.

One of the key points here is the treatment and re-use of water from the Rambla del Albujón in crop farming. For it to be possible to use the 3 million metres of water which flow down the Rambla every year in irrigation farming it has to be treated, and this can be achieved in the short term by mixing it with better quality water, as proposed by the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
But in the longer term it will be necessary to build a de-nitrification plant in order to treat the water, and the CHS say that this would be the responsibility of the regional government.
In the meantime, though, Antonio Luengo, the minister for Agriculture and the Environment in the Murcia government, has other plans, and announced an initiative to build 16 pools in which water from the Rambla del Albujón and the Rambla de Miranda will be allowed to accumulate and will be purified by wood chips which act as natural filters.
As Manuel Martínez, representing the irrigation farmers, commented on Monday, he and his companions have had enough of the authorities “throwing stones” at each other, adding that the farmers presented a proposal to build a de-nitrification plant two years ago.
Following a meeting among all parties on Monday, though, Sr Martínez was rather more satisfied, announcing that the drainage of the Rambla will go ahead on a temporary basis until the de-nitrification plant is completed: the regional government will build the plant in an estimated two years, while the CHS and the national government will bear the costs of enlarging the existing treatment plant in San Pedro del Pinatar.
Images: Raquel Ros, CHS
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