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Date Published: 17/12/2021

ARCHIVED - Murcia farmers receive 7 million euros to modernise irrigation equipment

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The measures aim to help the Mar Menor, but experts have found “increasingly frequent and more intense” pollution in the Segura River

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Murcia farmers receive 7 million euros to modernise irrigation equipment

Farmers in the Campo del Mar Menor, Totana and Cieza will receive just over 7 million euros of funding to modernise irrigation works, including installing automated irrigation systems, remote irrigation control and photovoltaic solar plants to reduce electricity bills.

However, those monitoring water quality in the area have found that the same problems of algal bloom and nitrate leakage are occurring in the Segura River.

Investment in irrigation hopes to stop pollution and resume farming activity

The announcement to invest vast sums in modernising agricultural irrigation systems around the Mar Menor comes just a day after the Confederation of Business Organisations of Cartagena (COEC) lamented that local farmers would suffer from not being allowed to water their farms thanks to a law prohibiting irrigation to prevent nitrates and other chemicals running off into the lagoon.

For the Campo de Cartagena irrigation community, with land in Torre Pacheco, Murcia, Cartagena, San Javier and San Pedro del Pinatar, 3.3 million euros will be used to support projects to reuse water from the San Javier treatment plant, which will affect 42,435 hectares and benefit 9,699 irrigators, and 2.6 million euros to do the same for those in Torre Pacheco and Los Alcázares, which will reach 12,144 hectares of 1,530 farmers.

In Totana, meanwhile, 1.2 million euros will go towards optimising the distribution and management of reclaimed water on 6,979 hectares belonging to 3,107 irrigators. This action will enable the use of non-conventional water, such as reclaimed water for irrigation, while implementing energy improvements with the implementation of solar photovoltaic installations for self-consumption to reduce the economic and environmental costs of pumping.

“This agreement will finance three projects aimed at improving our irrigation systems so that they work in a more sustainable and efficient way and thus reduce discharges into the Mar Menor,” said Deputy Mayor of Cartagena, Ana Belén Castejón.

Currently, the Campo de Cartagena Irrigation Community covers an area of more than 42,000 hectares with 9,699 members, and extends over the municipalities of Cartagena, Fuente Álamo, Los Alcázares, Murcia, San Javier, San Pedro del Pinatar, Torre Pacheco and Pilar de la Horadada.

“It is one of the largest and most technified irrigation communities in Europe and, without doubt, the largest in the Region. This means that agriculture is essential for our region and, from the City Council of Cartagena, we want to show our satisfaction for the granting of this aid,” said Castejón.

Pollution in the Segura River intensifies

At the same time, the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura (CHS) has detected high concentrations of cyanobacteria in the reservoirs of Argos, Judío, Santomera, Crevillente and Azud de Ojós along the Segura River in the Region of Murcia with “increasingly frequent and more intense” episodes.

The concentration of nutrients and the proliferation of harmful algae such as cyanobacteria indicate that the same thing is happening to the Segura River as happened to the Mar Menor: Murcia’s waterways are being poisoned by harmful chemicals, including nitrates, ammonium, nitrogen, sulphates, phosphates and phosphorus, most likely coming from unknown and unregulated industrial sources.

The CHS has detected episodes of algal bloom and high concentrations of these toxic bacteria in the reservoirs of Judío (Cieza), Argos (Cehegín), Azud de Ojós, Santomera and Crevillente in the neighbouring province of Alicante. It is in the case of the first three reservoirs where there is a greater impact of these episodes, similar to the processes of eutrophication (water loaded with nutrients) suffered by the Mar Menor lagoon.

What is particularly worrying is that since water quality controls have been carried out, these concentrations are becoming “more frequent and more intense over time”, the CHS acknowledges.

“The reasons for this outbreak of cyanobacteria may have been caused by a greater presence of nutrients in the water, high temperature, and the availability of light and oxygen, which may have led to eutrophication processes,” said Silvia Gómez, head of section in the Water Quality Department of the CHS.

The source of the pollutant that has caused an increase in bacteria is unknown, which is why the CHS must now “carry out greater monitoring of toxicity” in these bodies of water.

Image: Archive