MAR MENOR BY GONZALO G AND JUAN PEDRO

MAR MENOR 

• WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS OF MAR MENOR?

• The Mar Menor has gone from being a natural heritage to becoming a serious environmental problem. Its current state reflects the uncontrolled practice of agribusiness with the emission of nitrates and brines into the lagoon, the discharges of the municipalities into its waters and the emission of heavy metals through runoff in its southern basin. All this has happened, before the gaze to another side of those responsible for their state. Lack of control, laziness and lack of diligence in tackling the serious problems of pollution caused the Mar Menor to give us a warning, a cry that warned of its deterioration. The problems are still not resolved, despite the rhetoric of the regional administration and some member of the advisory commission on the Mar Menor. The mismanagement of the different administrations, as well as the uses and activities in the lagoon itself, with greater responsibility of the regional government, has led us to convert it from wealth and heritage of all Murcian citizens to a problem of the first order that should be solved. urgently.

• It is necessary to reflect on the causes. In a few decades we have gone from having an authentic jewel of great environmental wealth and biodiversity, from transparent, saline waters and with few nutrients, to having a very degraded space, both due to the activity of the urban-tourist sector and the sector of agribusiness. The Mar Menor has become the paradigm of an unsustainable and predatory model that generates benefits for a few and socializes losses for all citizens. A model that has not taken environmental impacts into account until the lagoon gave us the first warnings.

                                                                    AFTER 

                                                                      

now

• HOW CAN WE DO TO SOLUTION IT?  
• During the avenues, a good part of the agricultural pollution accumulated in the Campo de Cartagemes of water that have a high concentration of nutrients, causing the eutrophication of the lagoon, in addition to carrying a significant amount of sediment, especially from agricultural areas. This agricultural contamination that enters the lagoon during the great avenues cannot be managed or eliminated with collectors, storm tanks or green filters, which are the only actions planned by the regional administration as a supposed solution for the Mar Menor and whose general effectiveness is very questionablena for months or years is carried to the Mar Menor through the direct entry of large volu.

• 
  1.) Tackling the lack of control of irrigation in the Campo de Cartagena, with an audit that eliminates all illegal perimeters.
  
  2.) Reduce agricultural pollution at source, with effective, quantifiable and verifiable measures in application of the Nitrates Directive and the declaration of Campo de Cartagena as Vulnerable Zone.
  3.) Apply natural retention measures throughout the Campo de Cartagena, which act as nutrient traps from each agricultural plot to the vicinity of the Mar Menor.
  
  4.) In the fringes near the lagoon, recover natural wetland surfaces (not to be confused with green filters), which are the only ones capable of retaining and eliminating nutrients in the event of floods.
  
  It is known that wetland surfaces, both existing and that could be recovered, are capable of self-sustaining naturally, not only withstand flood episodes but also temporarily store large volumes of water during the next few days. slowly draining into the Mar Menor. In this process, natural wetlands act like a kidney, removing between 60 and 90% of the nutrient load before the waters reach the lagoon.
  
  
  Ecologistas en Acción once again asks that any investment in the Mar Menor respond to an integrated management plan that has scientific-technical consensus and broad citizen participation, in which measures are selected after evaluating cost-effectiveness of each option. In said plan, it is essential to consider the entry of nutrients during the great avenues and, together with the other three lines of action indicated, to recover natural wetland areas that have been lost due to agricultural and urban-speculative activity.
  
  On the other hand, once again an episode of intense rains gives rise to floods and serious damage in many other places in the Region of Murcia where it has been built in floodable areas and on occasions the channel space has been directly occupied, as Espinardo (where the space of a promenade has been occupied and the drainage ditches have been cased). Faced with this, the large investments in civil works do not solve the problem, as is shown over and over again.