ARCHIVED - 4 more resignations as scientists lose faith in the Murcia government Mar Menor committee

The credibility of the committee is damaged as biologists and environmental scientists resign their posts

As politicians continue to point the finger of blame at each other for the drastic deterioration in water equality in the Mar Menor, the catalyst for which was the flooding caused by the dramatic gota fría of mid-September although the underlying causes are generally held to be found in agricultural practices and urban development, four more members of the scientific committee formed by the Murcia government to oversee the condition of the lagoon have resigned from their posts.

The new departures follow the resignations of four other experts in June, one of whom (Miguel Ángel Esteve) explained in La Verdad recently, following the appearance of tens of thousands of dead fish and crustaceans on the beaches of the lagoon, that he was “tired of working with professionals who are too involved in power” (i.e. the government), and who allow themselves to repeat the same explanations and accusations as those who hold political power and thus take part in the “construction of a narrative which is far from the truth”.

The latest resignations are those of Víctor Manuel León León, an environmental scientist at the Spanish Oceanographic Institute in San Pedro del Pinatar), Juan Manuel Ruiz Fernández, an expert is seagrass meadows within the same organization, José Álvarez Rogel, a profesor in Agronomic Engineering at the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena and Gonzalo González Barberá, a biologist at the Cebas-CSIC research institute. All four are reported by La Verdad to have resigned over the course of recent weeks by means of letters addressed to Antonio Luengo, the minister for Water, Agriculture, Livestock Farming, Fishing and the Environment in the Murcia government.

It is believed that the reasons lying behind the decisions of the four experts are related to those expressed by Miguel Ángel Esteve, and specifically to the suggestions claims that the flooding in September was caused solely by the gota fría storm. After all, as Sr Esteve points out, a similar amount of runoff water flowed into the Mar Menor following a violent storm in 1987, and no such consequences were apparent in the lagoon, indicating that the health of the marine environment has become far more fragile over the last 32 years.

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