ARCHIVED - Major row erupts as 641 kilos of harmful nitrates flow into Mar Menor in one day

The regional PP and PSOE have been engaged in a bitter exchange of insults as nitrate-laden water continues to discharge into the lagoon

The public war of words between the regional PP and the national government PSOE parties about the continued entrance of nitrate-laden waters into the Mar Menor via the Rambla del Albujón has continued throughout the week, and on Thursday the regional PP party took the row to another level when they took a notary along to the Rambla del Albujón pumping station in order to demonstrate that "the pumping gate is closed, " and ask the notary to officially witness that this was indeed the case, the implication being that the CHS was failing to pump nitrate -laden water out of the rambla and was thereby causing the current problems in the Mar Menor.

The rambla del Albujón is the principal rambla (natural waterway) carrying run-off water from the Campo de Cartagena agricultural area which surrounds the Mar Menor and extends across the municipalities of Cartagena, San Pedro del Pinatar, San Javier and Torre Pacheco.

The land slopes down gently towards the coast and Mar Menor, and water used for irrigation, as well as natural rainwater, runs off the land and filters down through the soil, gathering in a network of drainage channels which in turn feed into water processing plants in Torre Pacheco and other municipalities, and into the network of ramblas, channels and waterways which run down to the coast, discharging principally into the Mar Menor as well as the Mediterranean at other points.

Other water filters down into the Cartagena aquifer which covers a vast area beneath the Campo de Cartagena.

The problems associated with the Mar Menor relate to the use of agricultural nitrates in the irrigation water which initially caused an algal bloom in the lagoon in 2016 and which five years later are still contributing to the current problems facing this huge body of water.

Dozens of scientific reports continue to emphasise that the root cause of the ongoing issues for the Mar Menor relate to the relentless entry of nitrate-laden waters into the lagoon from the various entry points, but stopping it is not a straightforward process; it’s not like turning off a tap as the water has to go somewhere and continues to flow relentlessly in from the surrounding campo.

It has been said repeatedly that the only way to stop the water flowing is to stop irrigating and for the clouds to stop raining, but legislation passed recently by the regional government only prevents irrigation in a very thin strip of land right next to the Mar Menor, agriculture being a major contributor to regional economic activity.

The Dirección General del Mar Menor takes regular measurements of the water entering the lagoon and reported on September 13 that the level of water running into the lagoon from the Rambla del Albujón was 47.59 litres per second, the total weight of nitrates carried into the lagoon on this one day being 641 kilos, based on analysis of the water samples collected.

The Rambla del Albujón is a natural waterway so comes under the control of the CHS (which answers to the national government).

There is a pumping station in the rambla which extracts water from the rambla and pumps it to a water processing plant in San Pedro del Pinatar where it is processed and then pumped back to the agricultural sector for re-use.

The pumping station does not have the capacity to remove all of the water from the rambla, nor the processing plant to handle it and the two structures were built many years before the water run-off was deemed to be a problem. As a result, the station processes less than half of the water run-off that passes along the network of channels and into the rambla, the remaining water flowing into the Mar Menor.

The CHS maintains that its principal function is to make water available for agriculture, and it is doing this, but there is a major war of words underway between the regional PP and national government, as the Murcian regional government (PP) wants to take control of the rambla and has requested that the competence of the CHS be removed in the region and control handed over to the regional government, which believes that it can better manage the resources itself, although the national government maintains that the regional government has done “nothing” to prevent the illegal extraction and use of water for agriculture, and has itself failed to act, causing the problems in the Mar Menor.

This blame game has been underway since 2016 and the lack of action since then by all parties, has undoubtedly hastened the deterioration of the lagoon as in spite of the fine words, very little in the way of concrete action has been undertaken and the situation has been exacerbated by the severe flooding caused by several episodes of heavy rain, which has left the aquifer beneath the campo very full and contributing to the flow of water.

This is compounded by the fact that the agriculturalists illegally extracting and desalinating the water then tipped concentrated by-products from the desalination process back down wells drilled into the aquifer, contaminating this body of water with nitrates, a process which continued for years on a major scale, right under the noses of both the regional government and CHS, both of whom knew it was occurring and did nothing to stop it.

At the end of last week the results of a report by the Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO, CSIC), prepared at the request of the Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico (MITECO) following the recent episode of fish deaths directly blamed what it called the “incessant entry of fertilisers into the lagoon proceeding from intensive agriculatural and other human activity” for the problems in the Mar Menor.

On Thursday, the regional spokesperson for the PP, Miriam Guardiola, accompanied by several PP deputies from the regional parliament and a notary went to the Albujón pumping station to "verify that the pumping gate is closed and the rambla continues to pour millions of litres of polluted water into the Mar Menor a day, millions of litres that are slowly killing the Mar Menor, " she said, going on to accuse the national government of Pedro Sánchez and the Government delegate to the Murcia region, José Vélez, who "are not complying with their legal obligations and are slowly letting the Mar Menor die " of “lying.”

Regional deputy for the PSOE, Carmina Fernández, responded that the Popular Party "knows perfectly well that the gate of the pumping station of the Albujón Rambla, which is not completely closed, also handles the water it receives from other sources" and does not draw in water from the rambla via the gate highlighted in the PP party photo.

Fernández explained that the Rambla del Albujón station pumps around 100 litres per second, or 8,640 cubic meters per day and 3,153,600 cubic meters per year, and that it has not stopped pumping since August 23, when it stopped for two and a half hours due to a technical fault which was fixed that same morning and pumping resumed.

She went on to criticise the “performance” put on by the PP and stated that the PSOE "is waiting to see the photo of the PP with a notary closing down illegal irrigation".

The problems facing the Mar Menor are very complex. CLICK HERE to find out more (full background document in English).

Images: PP and Canal Mar Menor