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ARCHIVED - Murcia and Spanish news round-up week ending 31st October 2019
A historic demonstration in Cartagena as Murcianos demand Mar Menor protection measures
As a working week which is shortened by the national holiday on Friday 1st November comes to an end in the Region of Murcia, the talk in the media and on the streets is once again of the Mar Menor, following a demonstration on Wednesday evening in Cartagena which many are describing as “historic”.
It is estimated that over 55,000 people took part in a march to demand steps to protect the marine environment and to prevent the flooding which has become common in coastal towns along the inland shore in recent years, united in a desire to see action instead of words after decades of failure to heed the warnings of ecologists, naturalists, environmentalists and other observers of the lagoon. A damning indictment of the inaction of successive regional governments and the CHS (among others) over the last 30 years is that it has taken the recent disastrous flooding and the removal of six tons of dead fish and crustaceans from the beaches in the north of the lagoon three weeks ago to bring matters to this point, and those currently in positions to implement measures must surely have received the message on Wednesday that the public are saddened, angry and frustrated at the situation.
The level of discontent has been heightened by the events of the last month and a half, since the destructive gota fría storm which hit the Costa Cálida in mid-September. The floodwater and mud has now been cleared from towns such as Los Alcázares, but the damage done to the Mar Menor itself by flood debris and runoff water, which acted as a catalyst on the accumulated factors threatening the lagoon, will continue to have much longer-lasting effects.
Wednesday’s demonstration came after a few days during which the Mar Menor was continually in the spotlight in the regional and national press. Earlier in the week it emerged that among the measures being considered by the regional government of Murcia is a ban on all irrigation farming on the fringe of land between the shore of the Mar Menor and the AP-7, N-332 and RM-12 roads. Other steps included in proposed legislation include a ban on the use of liquid manure, the immediate dismantling of unauthorized irrigation systems, limits on fishing in the Mar Menor, the freezing of all property development projects in the fringe area and, ambitiously, the creation of a model of sustainable tourism in the Mar Menor.
But these are still proposals, not action, and in the meantime the latest water quality measurements in the Mar Menor show an alarming increase in the amount of chlorophyll in the lagoon. For most of the last three years the figure has been under 5 milligrams per cubic metre of water, but immediately after the September gota fría it shot up to an average of 16 mg. At first it seemed that this was just temporary, but data collected on 25th October show that it has soared back up to over 13 mg with a range of values of between 11 and 16 mg.
At the same time, salinity remains well below the usual level and visibility is minimal in many parts of the lagoon, prompting scientists and others to warn that a return of the “green soup” of 2016 is under way.
With the Mar Menor in the public eye there were also reports that a Cartagena judge is alleged to have failed to protect the Mar Menor by simply ignoring charges against farmers in the area of Islas Menores, Mar de Cristal, Playa Honda and Los Nietos, where alterations to the natural lie of the land by agriculturalists are held largely responsible for numerous floods between 2011 and 2015. The judge is then reported to have delayed acting on appeals lodged against her decision for over two years.
On the other hand, though, the Instructing Judge investigating alleged irregular irrigation practices uncovered in April of this year has called representatives of 21 large crop farming concerns in the Campo de Cartagena to give evidence. If the suspicions of the Guardia Civil and the CHS are proved correct, these agricultural businesses illegally treated 15.2 million cubic metres of water extracted from the aquifer underneath the flat land, and the waste product from the process consisted of 3.8 million cubic metres of contaminated water which, after returning to the aquifer, will have made its way into the Mar Menor.
That equates to 3,800,000,000,000 litres of water containing harmful substances, a staggering figure which equates to over three times the capacity of all of the reservoirs in the Segura basin. The sheer scale of the charges surely underlines the importance of acting now in order to give the Mar Menor a chance to recover over a long period of time.
In the more immediate future, though, a long weekend begins on Thursday evening with the weather in the Costa Cálida forecast to be close to perfect for Halloween and All Saints’ Day as afternoon temperatures are likely to nudge 30 degrees on Friday. While enjoying the weekend, though, a couple of warnings: firstly, any plans to join one of the numerous guided visits or dramatizations in cemeteries over the next few days may have to be cancelled, as the Bishop of Cartagena has banned them in an effort to preserve an atmosphere of worship and piety, and secondly, it might be an idea to make sure your sweaters and eiderdowns are ready to be brought into use for the much cooler weather on the way next week!
The gota fría is still in the news as major repairs begin
Seven weeks after the gota fría storm which struck Murcia in mid-September the regional government department of Development and Infrastructures has begun the major repair and reconstruction work which is necessary on various of the roads which were worst hit by torrential rain and flooding.
Within a week of the rain stopping almost all of the roads belonging to the regional network which had been closed by flooding had been re-opened, but on four of them the damage was so great that prolonged closure has been necessary. The appropriate works projects have now been drawn up, though, and it has been determined that the investment needed to carry them out is budgeted at 1,164,500 euros.
The aim is to complete all of the reconstruction work by the end of the year, and this week the first of the projects began on the road between Pozo Aledo and La Puebla in the municipalities of Torre Pacheco and Cartagena, at a cost of 200.000 euros.
At the same time the Spanish government’s Department of Costas has begun the first phase of its 3.5-million-euro operation to repair storm damage to the beaches and infrastructures along the coasts of the Region of Murcia, with a timescale of 5 months established so that the Costa Cálida can be fully prepared in good time for Semana Santa and the start of the summer of 2020, and on a smaller scale, local “Barrios ADLE” scheme run by the Town Hall of Cartagena to provide work experience and training for the unemployed is in full swing in Los Urrutias and Los Nietos, where those taking part are sprucing up public areas in the two towns after the flooding caused by the Gota Fría.
In Cartagena, meanwhile, indignant residents have been granted some relief after receiving hugely inflated water bills for September as a result of them having to clean up their properties.
In some cases they also contributed with hoses to the clean-up operation on public land, and after the water company Hidrogea turned a deaf ear to requests for bills to be waived the Town Hall has proved equal to the situation. Last Friday Mayoress Ana Belén Castejón announced after a meeting with representatives of residents of Los Urrutias, Punta Brava, Estrella de Mar and Los Nietos that anyone who can show their water bill for September and who can demonstrate that their home or property suffered flood damage will be pardoned the bill, a measure which will be applicable even if it possible to show only that this September’s water bill was substantially higher than that of September 2018 in areas which suffered flooding.
Other items in the news this week
Dead body found in the Mar Menor in San Pedro del Pinatar: the 60-year-old man was found floating in the water just off the beach of La Mota.
Lorca man dies impaled on railings: an attempted burglary has been ruled out as the cause of the incident.
30,000 euros for seafront repairs in La Azohía: 300 wooden posts and 14,000 metres of rope are being replaced.
One dead as almost 200 migrants are intercepted off the coast of Murcia and Alicante: a new wave of migrants crossed the Mediterranean from Algeria and reached the Costa Cálida last weekend.
Diver dies in the Mediterranean at the beach of El Portús: the emergency services were alerted by a caller from the nudist campsite.
Mummified corpse of Madrid woman found in her home 15 years after her death: neighbours assumed that Isabel Rivera Molina had been committed to a mental health institution in 2004.
Ten times over the alcohol limit at the wheel of a 40-ton HGV in Lorca: a driver from Belarus was stopped and arrested on the AP-7 motorway as he headed for Almería, and the very next day in Alcantarilla the driver of an ambulance which was called out to the scene of a road accident was found to be eight times over the limit.
Águilas Town Hall supports Operation Christmas Child: donate a shoe box full of classroom materials and toys to underprivileged children in developing countries!
Winter flu vaccination campaign begins in Murcia: 240,000 doses of the vaccine are available at health centres throughout the Costa Cálida.
Dozens of dead sea bass on the beach of Portmán: initially there were suspicions of heavy metal contamination caused by runoff water from the old mines of Sierra Minera but the incident was later attributed to a virus in a nearby fish farming concern.
Spanish inflation rate remains at just above zero: the provisional data for October show a year-on-year rise of only 0.1 per cent.
Leroy Merlin opens new store in San Pedro del Pinatar: a fourth store in the Region of Murcia joins those in the outskirts of Cartagena and Murcia.
Toy electric ambulances for child patients at Cartagena hospital: a little fun and play for sick children at the Hospital Santa Lucía.
International marijuana trafficking ring busted in Málaga and Águilas: Albanians and Poles smuggled marijuana stored in Águilas to destinations in northern Europe and Italy.
Two injured in Lorca as bus careers down roadside embankment: a pedestrian suffered serious injuries and was immediately admitted to the nearby Hospital Rafael Méndez.
Murcia and Spanish property news
This week saw the publication of the government’s figures regarding mortgages taken out to finance property purchases in August, and following the sharp year-on-year drop in sales figures for the month it was no surprise to learn that the total of 20,385 new loans was almost 30 per cent lower than in August 2018.
The figures were down in all 17 regions of Spain by between 9.1 per cent in the Comunidad Valenciana and 61.5 per cent in La Rioja, while in the Region of Murcia the August numbers dropped by 20 per cent to just 569.
It is always possible, of course, that the August results are nothing more than a blip, but after a period in which the market appeared to be returning to stability the September figures will be awaited with some anxiety. In the meantime, the longer-term picture shows that the fall in August goes against a gradual on-going upward trend in mortgage activity in the Costa Cálida and in Spain: the running 12-monthly total for property mortgages stands at 8,608, representing a rise of 4.1 per cent over the last 12 months and an increase of 76 per cent since the market bottomed out in the spring of 2014, while in Spain the equivalent rises are 7 per cent and 99 per cent.
Andalucía parliament endorses decree to regularise illegally built homes: justice for an estimated 327,000 homeowners in Andalucía including many non-Spanish buyers who purchased in good faith, a large number of them UK nationals.
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