ARCHIVED - Cartagena Mayoress demands urgent action in the Mar Menor

“Something is going wrong” says Mayoress Ana Belén Castejón 

The latest meeting of the “inter-administrational forum of the Mar Menor”, in which representatives of the Town Halls involved discuss the actions being undertaken with regards to the lagoon with the regional government, was held on Tuesday in Cartagena, where the local Mayoress Ana Belén Castejón once again called for “urgent action” to be taken before the spring in an attempt to ensure that the summer tourist season is salvaged, at least to a certain extent.

Sra Castejón says that she has no doubt over the good intentions of the President of the national government, Pedro Sánchez, or the Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Rivera, but explains that “something is going wrong”: they want to act, she says, but no action is being taken.

By way of example the Mayoress cites the removal of mud and waste from the beaches during the winter, a task which, she says, has not even begun in some areas, with the result that the residents are beginning to demand explanations from her and from her fellow Mayors in the municipalities of San Pedro del Pinatar, San Javier and Los Alcázares, despite the fact that this is not one of the responsibilities of the Town Halls. For this reason she urges the Costas department to transmit some urgency to the procedures to install the 5 bathing stations for which approval has been given in the area of Los Urrutias, where they are necessary in order for bathers to reach clear water by walking on jetties past the mud which has accumulated along the inland shore of the Mar Menor.

Similarly, within the municipality of Cartagena she reiterated the need for work to begin or continue on the seafront walks in Los Nietos, Los Urrutias and between Mar de Cristal and Islas Menores, while reiterating that within its own responsibilities the Town Hall has tripled the resources devoted to the Mar Menor coastline in terms of both budget and staffing levels.

In short, Ana Balén Castejón hopes for speed, haste and “courage” in the efforts to help the Mar Menor recover and discharge it “from the Intensive Care Unit” in which it currently finds itself.

In response, Antonio Luengo, the regional minister for Water, Agriculture, Farming, Fishing and the Environment in the Murcia government, explained that for Costas (national government) to remove the mud from the shore and to go ahead with the bathing stations the department must produce its own environmental impact reports, and that he will repeat his request that they do so.

At the same time, he reported that the latest water quality data in the Mar Menor show that as the water temperature begins to rise the level of chlorophyll has risen to 4 grams per litre, twice as much as a fortnight ago, while the salinity remains very low at 38.6 – almost exactly the same as on the other side of La Manga del Mar Menor in the Mediterranean. This low salinity helps to explain the appearance in the lagoon of an “invasive” species of worm, Hydroides elegans: the same species was found here in 2016 and has now reappeared as the water begins to turn green again due to the algal bloom which is already clearly visible in some areas, including the beach of Villananitos in San Pedro del Pinatar.

The situation facing the Mar Menor is complicated, due in no small part to the number of bodies and administrations which "have their fingers in the proverbial pie. "

Los Alcázares, San Pedro del Pinatar, San Javier and Cartagena each have their own municipal councils and some specific responsibilities, other areas are the concern of the regional government, others the national government via the Departments of Environment and Costas (coastal matters), each of which has their own distinct administrations, budgets and responsibilities, the CHS controls ramblas and waterways, and in-between that are all of the scientific bodies, research projects, ecologists and volunteers, each of whom has an opinion about the priorities and how the problems should be tackled, so the situation is complicated to say the least.

Click here for a more in-depth analysis and explanation of the problems facing the Mar Menor.

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