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ARCHIVED - Difficult months ahead for the Mar Menor says Murcia government minister
The lagoon will turn green again “sooner rather than later” if the national government don’t take action, says Javier Celdrán
Murcia regional government minister Javier Celdrán, speaking after a meeting of the regional cabinet on Thursday, presented the latest data regarding water quality in the Mar Menor and warned that the lagoon is likely to turn green again “sooner rather than later” as a consequence, he says, of the continuing runoff of fresh water bearing fertilizers and nutrients absorbed from the Campo de Cartagena.
Those living along the inland shore of the Mar Menor are well aware of the condition of the water, which is completely safe for bathing but has altered drastically since the two “gota fría” storms of September and December 2019 and Storm Gloria last month. In his comments Sr Celdrán recognized that there are serious concerns over the marine vegetation, algae and biomass which have accumulated in the lagoon since last summer, warning that unless the CHS water infrastructures authority and the national government take action to prevent any more runoff entering the lagoon via the Rambla del Albujón the Mar Menor will turn green again, as it did in 2016.
(The body responsible for the Ramblas (natural flood channels) in Murcia is the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura (CHS), which administers water infrastructures in the Segura basin. The basin includes parts of the regions of Andalucía, Castilla-La Mancha and the Comunidad Valenciana as well as Murcia and the CHS is a part of the Ministry for Ecological Transition in the national government : hence Sr Celdrán's insistence on the national government being responsible.)
The minister reports that 350 litres of water are still entering the Mar Menor per second due to the water table under the Campo de Cartagena being exceptionally high, and that such a level of incoming fresh water is preventing the lagoon from recovering the high salinity which has always set the marine environment apart from the Mediterranean. Since the dredging of the Gola del Estacio canal between the Mar Menor and the Mediterranean in the early 1970s the salinity measurement in the lagoon has almost always been around 44 or 45 grams per litre of water, but since September 2019 it has remained close to 38.5 grams, almost exactly the same as in the water on the other side of La Manga.
This is despite the fact that the water temperature has risen by 2 degrees in the last 10 days from 12 to 14 degrees. Warmer temperatures are usually associated with higher salinity in the Mar Menor, but on this occasion it appears that the correlation is not being maintained, and this is heightening the worries of those monitoring the situation.
Other parameters show that the level of chlorophyll in the Mar Menor has stabilized at around 2 mg per litre, close to normal levels, while the level of oxygen is holding firm at around 8 mg/litre: it was a sudden fall in oxygen levels after the gota fría storm of September which resulted in tons of dead fish and crustaceans washing up on the beaches of the lagoon.
These statements from Javier Celdrán on Thursday came a day after warnings from the naturalists’ association ANSE that for the first time to their knowledge large quantities of phytoplankton mucilage, commonly known as “babas” (or slime) are accumulating in the lagoon. Mucilage, it should be explained, is a thick, gluey substance produced by nearly all plants and some microorganisms, and its appearance in the Mar Menor could well be caused, according to ANSE, by an excess of nutrients in the water.
The “bloom” of mucilage is similar to others which have been reported in the Mediterranean in recent years, according to Pedro García of ANSE, but it has never before been seen on the same scale in the Mar Menor. It was detected by equipment which has been installed to monitor the migration of eels from the lagoon to the Mediterranean, and which revealed “millions of fragments of mucilage” completely covering the sea bed in the Tomás Maestre marina, the Canal del Estacio and other areas.
Work has been underway since both the September Gota Fría and the latest storms to remove debris and silt washed down into the Mar Menor by the torrential rains, to replace sand swept from the beaches and remove marine vegetation from the shores of the lagoon, photographic evidence slowly building to indicate that a great deal of work lies ahead this summer to fight the after-effects of the storms.
Click here to read a detailed background document about the current situation facing the Mar Menor.
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