Several groups reject the projects proposed to recover the salty lagoon and ask for long-term measures, with scientific endorsement and respectful of nature
“We are tired of the authorities carrying out works of dubious efficacy.” Thus began the manifesto that members of groups in defense of the Mar Menor read at a rally attended by several dozen people this Saturday in Plaza de Juan XXIII in Murcia, in front of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment to protest against “the concrete solutions in the Mar Menor».
Specifically, the conveners, some thirty platforms including ILP Mar Menor, Mar Menor Banderas Negras and SOS Mar Menor, focused their criticism on the construction of fifteen bioreactor ponds in Los Alcázares, next to the Albujón boulevard , the main plan of the regional government to recover the Mar Menor. That was also the slogan of the protest: ‘Stop useless public works. #BioreactorsNo’. Numerous posters with slogans such as ‘For a Mar Menor Alive’, ‘Stop ecoicide’ and ‘Zero discharges’ were seen at the concentration.
Members of the ILP Mar Menor platform explained that the bioreactors have already been tested in other places, and of the 15 bioreactors built, they only filtered the amount of water equivalent to that contained in an Olympic swimming pool. “We do not want public money to be spent on fanciful projects whose effectiveness is not proven. The solution is simpler and involves enforcing the law, and controlling with inspectors the amount of nitrates that enter the Mar Menor,” said Jesús Cutillas, a member of the group.
ros caval / agm
The bioreactors are rafts with wood chips from citrus pruning that remove nitrate from the water. To carry out the project, it is necessary to occupy 48,500 square meters of land in the municipality of Los Alcázares in the first phase, agricultural plots that will be expropriated.
“It is not scientifically proven that this plan solves the problem. We ask for real solutions and if the problem is discharge, why don’t these discharges stop? That is what has been shown to work,” said Teresa Conesa, from the same platform. For the associations in defense of the salty lagoon, these proposals do not satisfy anyone, neither environmentalists nor farmers “because they are measures whose main interest is political, to put an end to a situation quickly when the problem of the Mar Menor requires long-term proposals term, with a consensual scientific endorsement and respectful works with nature, “said Caroline Rivière, spokesperson for Por un Mar Menor Vivo.