ARCHIVED - Negative environmental report for El Gorguel container macroport in Cartagena

“If a few dolphins are upset about more ships coming past, then they should go somewhere else”

The Port Authority is being urged to consider other options

The proposed macro-port in the bay of El Gorguel, which lies to the east of Cartagena between Escombreras and Portmán, is back in the headlines again following another outbreak of controversy regarding the ecological ramifications of going ahead with the project.

Were it to go ahead, the flagship project of Cartagena’s Port Authority would provide the region with a trading port capable of handling three million freight containers per year, and would also lead to the creation of 3,000 jobs. As such it is on the list of macro-projects which has received backing from the regional government, but on Tuesday the plans were dealt a severe blow with the publication of a report by the national Ministry of the Environment.

The report concludes that the macro-port would have a “substantial” effect on protected areas in and around El Gorguel, and urges the Port Authority to study alternative projects, citing as their main concerns seaweed, posidonia and coral in 330 hectares of the seabed which would be affected by the construction of a port, the habitat of bottlenose dolphins and birdlife in the nearby Sierra de Fausilla reserve.

According to the text produced by the environmental dept, MAGRAMA, the construction of the new container port, capable of handling vessels up to 300 metres in length and capable of transporting 10,000 containers,“would have significant negative impacts on the environment, specifically on the areas included in the Red Natura 2000 (LIC Zepa Fausilla and LIC medio marino), as well as on habitats and species of community interest.”

But the proponents of the port are not ready to take this setback lying down, despite the fact that the Ministry’s negative report uses information gathered by University of Murcia research teams and the region’s own environmental authority. The Port Authority of Cartagena, headed by Adrián Ángel Viudes, continues to maintain that El Gorguel is the only possible site for a macro-port in the whole of the Region of Murcia, rejecting the argument that the facilities already existing at Escombreras could be extended in order to fulfil the same function. Another possibility being mooted is to negotiate the use of the Algameca port just to the west of Cartagena, while sites elsewhere in the Region have already been discounted for ecological reasons.

In order to continue with his project, Sr Viudes is now pressuring regional president Ramón Luís Valcárcel to persuade the national government to declare the macro-port to be of “preferential economic importance” for Spain. This would enable him to fight his cause in Brussels, where it will also be necessary to deliver a report detailing how the environmental flaws pinpointed can be compensated, and one of the cards he can still play is the fact that the Ministry of Fomento has given the macro-port “priority” status. (It should be noted at this point that the Port Authority is actually dependent on this Ministry).

At the same time, the head of the Port Authority has pointed out that the Ministry Report is not definitive, and has vowed to continue fighting for the project to go ahead.

Defending the project fiercely on all fronts, Sr Viudes has also expressed his conviction that his team will be able to convince environmental officers that the impact of the El Gorguel project would not be as drastic as this initial report suggests, and that plants, birds and dolphins would be almost completely unaffected. More importantly, in his view, the European government is bound to support the project as a logical extension of the rail corridor by which Cartagena is to be linked to Northern Europe, and which Sr Viudes believes should terminate in Escombreras and El Gorguel.

All of this is logical, as is his argument that the port of Rotterdam has been allowed to expand despite an appreciable environmental impact, but some of Sr Viudes’ comments appear to have been designed specifically to anger environmentalists. He is reported in the press as having described the Ministry report as “very poor” and “not thorough”, and his attitude towards the marine wildlife affected was far from respectful: “If a few dolphins are upset about more ships coming past, then they should go somewhere else”, he is reported to have commented, adding in an attempt to explain more deeply that “I get annoyed every night about my neighbour’s dogs barking, but I don’t complain”. Convincing rhetoric indeed, but not comments which have endeared him to the ecologists who have been fighting a battle against the construction of this macroport from the start, some of whom have been fined by the Port Authority for protesting outside their headquarters in Cartagena.

Sr Viudes did complain, however, that it is “unfair” that in Murcia it is “impossible to make a port or anything” because the Region has the “only completely protected coast”.

Unsurprisingly, these comments have provoked the wrath of Ecologistas en Acción and Anse, who have referred to the Ministry report as proof that Sr Viudes has been telling “lies” for years. At the same time they interpret his comments as a demonstration of his insensitivity to environmental concerns.

The proposed capacity of the El Gorguel facility would make it one of the largest in Europe: it is thirty-seven times greater than the current capacity of the Santa Lucía terminal in Cartagena and fifteen times that of the extended Escombreras facility, which environmentalists say is hardly being used.

While in Portmán, just a couple of kilometres away from El Gorguel, the major concern is that the construction of the port would compromise the efforts to achieve a regeneration for one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in Spain, Portmán bay. Construction of the macro port will not only leave it visible from Portmán, but those campaigning against the port say construction works of 5 kilometres of dykes and seawalls, and docksides covering 300 hectares, would stir up the sediment and undo regeneration works in Portmán, and that the port could easily be built inside the Escombreras area, an option which Sr Viudes continues to discount.

From the regional governmental point of view, this is an unwelcome report, coming soon after environmental campaigners won a major victory at Marine de Cope, felling the giant luxury development project on the grounds that it breached environmental protection legislation.

However, the head of the Port Authority has vowed to fight on….. as have the ecologists.