Date Published: 07/11/2019
ARCHIVED - Costas identify 18 unauthorized locations where water runs off into the Mar Menor
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Further studies will be made to determine whether the pipes must be sealed
As the regional and national governments and other administrative bodies strengthen their efforts to be seen to be taking action to prevent any further deterioration in the marine environment of the Mar Menor, where the effects of the build-up of nitrates in the water from agricultural land over a period of decades were accelerated by the flooding caused by the destructive gota fría storm of mid-September, there have been heated exchanges over a statement made on Wednesday to the effect that the Costas department of the Spanish government has detected 18 points where water is allowed to flow into the lagoon without any authorization having been obtained by those responsible.
This does not necessarily mean that all of this runoff contains harmful substances, but Costas have demanded information from the Town Halls concerned and from the regional government regarding the amount of water involved and what it contains, and if sufficient guarantees are not provided all of the pipes will have to be sealed off to protect the Mar Menor.
But the heated exchanges are not cries of indignation that so many runoff points have been located. As is almost inevitable with a general election only a couple of days away, the issue has quickly been converted into an argument over who detected the problems and who is responsible for them having been allowed to remain unsolved thus far.
According to Hugo Morán, the Secretary of State for the Environment, the investigation leading to the identification of the 18 locations began in March and Ministry officials are helping municipal staff to analyse the nature of each runoff point. At the same time, though, the response from the regional government has been one of “astonishment” that the analysis on the part of Costas began only this year, given that in Murcia they have been inspecting the area “since 2016”.
(It may be worth pointing out at this juncture that at present the national government is formed by the PSOE party, at least until the election on Sunday, while the PP remains in power in the Region of Murcia.)
Whatever the truth of the matter, though, some observers probably feel that rather than quibble over who started investigating what and when, the most important thing is to determine the nature of the water running into the Mar Menor and, if it contains harmful substances, to prevent it from continuing to do so.
Sr Morán also spoke favourably of the proposals submitted to him earlier in the week by the Town Hall of Los Alcázares to invest 70 million euros in the creation of “green” infrastructures around the town to prevent a repeat of the disastrous flooding in September. Coincidentally, Pedro Sánchez, the acting Prime Minister pending the election, is visiting Los Alcázares on Thursday as part of his campaigning, and plans to walk from the Paseo Montesinos to the Hotel Balneario de la Encarnación: this visit was postponed last week due to a problem with the aeroplane on which Sr Sánchez was scheduled to fly to the Mar Menor.
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