ARCHIVED - Los Alcázares Mayor presents flood prevention project in Madrid

Mario Pérez Cervera met the Secretary of State for the Environment on Monday

Following the worst “gota fría” storm for 50 years in Murcia in the middle of September Mario Pérez Cervera, the Mayor of Los Alcázares, met Hugo Morán, the Secretary of State for the Environment in the Spanish government, on Monday and secured a promise that proposals he outlined for the prevention of flooding in the town and of the runoff of harmful substances into the Mar Menor in future episodes of heavy rain will be studied by Ministry staff.

Los Alcázares, it should be remembered, was among the towns worst hit by flooding in mid-September, and residents and council workers were assisted in the month-long clean-up operation by the Military Emergencies Unit and an army of volunteers from all over the Region of Murcia.

The project presented by the Mayor is still no more than a draft document, but the measures contained are estimated to imply an investment of some 80 million euros and therefore require funding as well as technical assistance if they are to be implemented. These measures include the creation of “green filters” (ponds and water deposits which would serve to both store and treat floodwater, making its subsequent use in agriculture possible), solar power farms in order to make Los Alcázares a “green” municipality, and a series of physical protection infrastructures to prevent floodwater reaching the town in future.

These “retention” structures would operate at three levels and would incorporate structures which already exist such as the AP-7 motorway and the RM-F35 road. In essence they would consist of ponds parallel to the coast of the Mar Menor to retain sediment and reduce floodwater, or of making use of the Rambla del Albujón, and the volume of water which could be retained is calculated at 2.3 million cubic metres – the equivalent of the amount involved in a typical episode of flooding in the Rambla de la Maraña, which leads into what is now part of the built-up area of Los Alcázares.

Any excess water above this amount would then be channelled around the town centre, and according to Sr Pérez Cervera by the time the water reached the Mar Menor “most of the solids and sediment” would have been removed.

Other ideas presented include a large water deposit with a capacity of 1 million cubic metres and boreholes to extract water from the aquifer beneath the Campo de Cartagena and thus lower the water table.

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