ARCHIVED - Mar Menor in critical condition says Murcia government minister

3,000 kilos of dead fish and crustaceans have been removed from the shore

Antonio Luengo reports that ways are being sought to inject oxygen into the lagoon

The latest images showing thousands of fish and marine crustaceans washed ashore dead or dying on the beaches of Lo Pagán and Villananitos at the northern end of the Mar Menor have provoked a feeling of outrage amongst the public and environmentalists, exacerbated by the immediate response from many of the bodies involved in the management of the Mar Menor, the CHS, the agricultural community and politicians from all parties, who began to blame each other for the crisis as tens of thousands of fish and crustaceans died on the shoreline in San Pedro del Pinatar, gasping for oxygen.

The regional high court of Murcia has ordered the public prosecution service to investigate the event, which is still being reported in the press as involving thousands of marine animals although video footage suggests that the number could run into tens or even hundreds of thousands. The prosecution has first sought declarations from members of the Seprona wildlife protection wing of the Guardia Civil and environmental officers who were present at Villananitos, in San Pedro del Pinatar, and while the latest water quality data are awaited it is being supposed that the mass deaths in the Mar Menor were caused by the hypoxia (or low oxygen level) in the water.

Numerous samples were taken on Saturday for further analysis.

The TSJ (Fiscalía del Tribunal Superior de Justicia) investigation will be spearheaded by Miguel de Mata, public prosecutor in cases relating to the environment,  who will attempt to determine whether the death of the fish can be attributed to criminal activity or whether an "act of nature" is the technical cause. He has been quoted in the regional media as saying that he has no intention of "accepting the explanations given by politicians" and that the "public has the right to a full investigation" behind the current situation.

¿Por qué pueden estar muriendo los peces de esos videos?
¿Por qué saltan en la superficie del mar?
¿Por qué algunos se lanzan a la orilla fuera del agua?

¿Veneno? ¿Una supervillana llamada DANA?

¡¡ SE MUEREN PORQUE NO HAY OXÍGENO EN EL AGUA !!#SOSMarMenor
... pic.twitter.com/lEnFEZ9134

— Dr. BioBlogo (@DrBioblogo) October 13, 2019

In this context Antonio Luengo, the minister for the Environment in the Murcia government, reported on Monday that ways are being sought to “inject” oxygen into the lagoon, describing the crisis as the worst in the history of the Mar Menor and warning that the pocket of Hypoxic water could yet move towards Santiago de la Ribera.

The regional president Fernando López Miras also visited the lagoon, calling it a "national emergency".

But most of the attention concerning this tragedy now focuses on what actually caused oxygen levels to dip alarmingly during the second half of September, and particularly in the period leading up to the catastrophic scenes on Saturday. Antonio Luengo has until now maintained that the phenomenon can be attributed entirely to the amount of fresh water which ran into the Mar Menor as a result of the gota fría storm which left much of the Region flooded a month ago, the fresh water forming a "pocket" above the heavier saltwater, but other opinions abound and one possibility reported to be under investigation is that a stormwater tank in San Pedro del Pinatar may have been opened, either accidentally or deliberately, allowing yet more fresh water into the lagoon. Both the council and Antonio Luengo have denied that the incident was caused by the opening of a stormwater tank. Javier Gilabert, member of the scientific committee which has been monitoring the Mar Menor since the previous incident of eutrophication, also said that "the factor of the stormwater tank has been completely ruled out":

There is little doubt that Antonio Luengo is right in one sense, in that had the gota fría not hit the Mar Menor and the Campo de Cartagena in September the situation in the Mar Menor would almost certainly not be as critical as it is now. The sudden influx of fresh water, debris, soil, fertilizers and other unwanted material into the lagoon is bound to have a detrimental effect on the marine environment, after all.

But many sectors, including the fishermen of San Pedro del Pinatar, are angered that the blame should be attributed solely to the weather. The fishermen claim that no-one has heeded their warnings for the last 30 years regarding the need to protect the Mar Menor, and they are not alone in suggesting that the regional government has failed to protect the lagoon ever since the advent of intensive irrigated farming and the urban expansion in coastal towns in the second half of the 20^th century.

They have watched with sadness and anger this weekend as the fishstocks in this area of the Mar Menor have been effectively wiped out, and others put at risk, a situation which will undoubtedly affect the livelihoods of the 150 families in the municipality who depend on the fishing trade for their income.

An example of the lack of attention to the lagoon of which they are accusing the regional authorities can be seen in the above image, which shows ploughed land with the furrows running down the slope towards the Mar Menor alongside the town of Islas Menores. The government has introduced legislation that all such furrows should run parallel to the shoreline in order to reduce runoff: this is clearly positive legislation, but, crucially, it would appear that nothing has been done to enforce it.

During the Gota Fría agricultural debris was swept kilometres from Torre Pacheco down into the Mar Menor following the natural sloping course of the land, tens of thousands of kilometres of nitrate-laden mud from the agricultural fields surrounding the Mar Menor carrying agricultural plastics and produce into the waters, leaving beaches strewn with rotting melons, plastic piping and agricultural debris. Changing the direction of the furrows ploughed by farmers would have made no difference whatsoever in this extreme weather scenario, but year by year the gradual drip drip drip of fertilisers into the Mar Menor and the effects of human activity contribute to change in the waters.

The directional ploughing of furrows is just one tiny example of the laissez-faire attitude of which both the regional and national governments are now being accused, and it may seem a trivial one but to say that it angers ecologists would be to understate the case. Ecologists, while recognizing that the storm last month brought matters to a head, blame the regional government, the CHS water infrastructures authority and the agricultural sector for creating the circumstances in which flooding has the ability to cause natural disasters on this scale, while the scarcely controlled growth in urban development is certainly not exempted from blame.

The Spanish phrase for “the straw which broke the camel’s back” is “la gota que colmó el vaso” (the drop which overfilled the glass), and in some ways last month’s storm might be said to be “la gota fría que colmó el vaso”.

In the words of Ecologistas en Acción in a statement issued on Monday, the profound “eutrophic crisis” of 2016 when the water in the Mar Menor turned cloudy and green has been left “unsolved”, and the government has not only turned a blind eye to unauthorized farming practices but has actively encouraged them, allowing “unlicensed ploughing on thousands of hectares”.

On a similar tack, Pedro García of the ANSE naturalists’ association accuses the regional government of not knowing what to do and says that the government is behaving “like a headless chicken”.

"Intensive farming fertilisers used for irrigation farming are the principal reason for causing the eutrophication crisis in the Mar Menor " ANSE said in a press note on Monday, criticising both the CHS for the growth in intensive farming in the area and lack of control over hundreds of illegal wells as well as the regional government which has allowed thousands of hectares of unlicensed cultivation to exacerbate the problem.

In this context it is sad but, given the imminent general election in Spain, almost inevitable that the first reaction of the regional and national governments seemed to be to blame each other for the lack of action taken, not only over the last three years but also over recent decades. While locals in San Pedro took videos and expressed their shock on social media as sea bass, prawns, crabs and countless other species emerged from the water seeking oxygen,dying on the beach, the tone was modified a little and Teresa Ribera, the Minister for Ecological Transition in the Spanish government, has announced that she will visit Murcia on Wednesday to agree on “emergency measures”.

@MarmenorKO
Esto está pasando en la playa de Villananitos, ¿qué está pasando? pic.twitter.com/Xzbet3vEtT

— mariete (@marioneta2002) October 12, 2019

It must be hoped that Sra Ribera (of the PSOE party) and Sr López Miras (PP) can set aside their political differences once and for all and set plans in motion immediately to protect what is left of the marine environment of the Mar Menor. On Monday afternoon the regional government of Murcia is convening to discuss the situation, and if any subsequent statements are aimed solely at apportioning the blame to political rivals it can be assumed that the anger of ecologists will be fuelled still further.

In the meantime, though, Antonio Luengo reports that at least 3,000 kilos of dead fish have been removed from the shore in what is being referred to by the regional Spanish media as “un cementerio de entre dos y tres kilómetros” (a cemetery of 2 or 3 kilometres). On social media numerous images and videos are accompanied by commentaries detailing “thousands of fish committing suicide” by seeking oxygen on land.

As yet the experts are unwilling to hazard a guess as to whether the damage done to marine wildlife is irreparable, but as environmental officers valiantly struggled to save eels and other species which are protected in the lagoon fears were rising that this could prove to be the case.

Last Friday, when an article in regional media La Verdad was entitled “Demasiado tarde para el Mar Menor” (too late for the Mar Menor) there may have been a temptation to treat the headline as an exaggeration. Within 24 hours, though, the phrase appeared to be eerily prophetic, and while it is not possible to say that all marine life in the lagoon is about to become extinct it is certainly true that the forecasts of disaster which have been appearing with growing frequency on social network sites since the start of the summer can no longer be taken lightly.

Note: videos and images featured in this article were tweeted or re-tweeted by @MarMenorKO, one of the observers who forecast an episode like the one on Saturday almost as soon as the rain stopped falling after the gota fría a month ago, and ANSE, who are among those holding a demonstration in Cartagena on 30th October behind the slogan "SOS Mar Menor".

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