Date Published: 05/11/2019
ARCHIVED - Pumping system repaired and ready to prevent contaminated water reaching the Mar Menor
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The system will be fully operational only when farmers request to use the diverted water
Ever since the worst “gota fría” storm for 50 years caused widespread flooding in mid-September and the runoff of up to 1,000 tons of harmful nitrates into the Mar Menor there have been calls in many quarters for water to be pumped out of the Rambla del Albujón floodwater channel, and the CHS water infrastructures administration body has announced this week that repairs on a pumping system have been completed and they are now beginning testing to ensure that the mechanism can be made fully operational.
The aim of this pumping is to prevent water containing nitrates from the farmland of the Campo de Cartagena from reaching the lagoon, as this is held to be largely responsible for the decline in water quality in the Mar Menor over the last couple of decades and especially since 2016. The repaired pipeline connects the water distribution canal network with the treatment station of El Mojón in San Pedro del Pinatar, potentially enabling contaminated water to be re-directed, but the CHS warns that the pipe will not work at full capacity unless the irrigation farmers request permission to use the treated water in their fields.
The pipeline has been in use since the year 2000, although the treatment plant at El Mojón is not in operation because it does not have permission to release the bi-products from treatment into the sea and this will continue to be the case until the CHS equips it with de-nitrification processes. That the farmers can use the water is due to them being able to mix it with water transferred to the Segura basin from the Tajo basin in central Spain, reducing its salinity.
The first hurdle to overcome, then, is for the farmers to request permission to use the water, and they are meeting to decide on the matter on Tuesday. The president of the association of irrigation in the Campo de Cartagena, Manuel Martínez Madrid, points out that the CHS cancelled all such permission in July, depriving the crop fields of 2.2 hectometers of water a year (of which around 40 per cent required mixing with water from the Tajo-Segura canal).
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