It will invest 7.7 million in the first phase of a project against the dragging of waste into the Mar Menor and against floods
The first package of works committed by the central government to tackle pollution of mining origin in the Mar Menor basin will have as protagonists four boulevards that cross the municipality of Cartagena. Within a global investment of 70 million euros, 30 of them in five of these public channels and 40 in ponds and land affected by mining waste, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition will allocate 7.74 million to the environmental restoration of the Ramblas of Las Matildes, Beal, Ponce and La Carrasquilla.
Over three years, the state company Tragsa will carry out “hydrological-forest restoration works to reduce the risk of flooding and improve the environment in the hydraulic public domain,” sources from the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS) explained yesterday. ).
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Program
Hydrological-forestry restoration to reduce the risk of flooding and improve the environment in the hydraulic public domain. -
Jobs
Creation of water retention dykes and improvement of biodiversity». -
Places and budget
Ramblas of Las Matildes, Beal, Ponce and La Carrasquilla. The investment will be 7.74 million euros.
In a statement, the basin organization explained that “the works, mainly, consist of the creation of water retention dams and the improvement of biodiversity.” There will be “Actions of Adaptation Based on Ecosystems (ABE)” in several sections of these dry rivers, which carry large amounts of water and sediments with a strong chemical load to the south of the lagoon and its shore, between Los Urrutias and Mar de Crystal.
“The aim is to provide technical solutions to the problems of flooding and environmental damage in this eastern area of the municipality of Cartagena, in order to reduce the contributions to the Mar Menor of solid flows contaminated with heavy metals, fertilizers and pesticides from the Sierra Minera de Cartagena”, they added in the institution. In August of last year, sources from the CHS indicated that it was also planned to intervene in the Rambla del Miedo, which starts in La Unión and runs alongside El Algar. The reason is that “some of the ravines at the head of this channel reach the urban area” of Union and generate pockets of water and the dragging of polluting materials.
To questions from THE TRUTH, this Thursday at the Confederation they specified that the investment of 7.7 million is “the first phase” of the program of actions. And they stressed that all the works will be carried out in the public domain area, where it is not necessary to initiate procedures for the expropriation of land from third parties, because the owner is the State.
The following works “will be done when the land is available and the goods and rights affected by the actions are taken,” they added in the basin organization.
Neighborly doubts about the order
In any case, the priority of these works is questioned by the residents of several towns, such as Llano del Beal. The Platform for People Affected by Heavy Metals has asked the Ministry to clarify why it is going to start working on the boulevards instead of first undertaking the sealing and revegetation of mining swamps and contaminated plots within urban centers and on their periphery .
The spokesman for the aforementioned citizen group, Juan Ortuño, recalled that in the Rambla de Mendoza the CHS, which is now chaired by Mario Urrea, invested 2.3 million euros in 2009 and the bed has once again become clogged with waste, for not having acted « before, or at least simultaneously, at the headwaters and in other sections where waste enters”.
«Are they going to start the house from the roof again and invest millions of euros of public money, in some measures in the boulevards that would end up not being effective? Why is priority not given to action in inhabited areas, given the risks to public health that we neighbors have suffered for decades? The Ministry must explain it very well to the neighbors and to the whole of society, and reconsider whether it is acting correctly or if it is about spending the money that the European Union has sent due to the pandemic, and to do so as soon as possible”, commented Ortuño.
This citizen representative reiterated that the residents will make “a camp to prevent the entry of the machines” to the El Lirio mining deposit, next to La Manga Club, if the public administrations initiate the sealing of that raft before the actions in the towns of the Saw. He recalled that the Ministry granted the Autonomous Community a subsidy of 4 million euros to carry out these works, together with the tourist complex, and that the regional Administration will spend another million euros.
Ortuño will demand explanations tomorrow, at an information session organized by the Ministry, together with the Sierra Minera Foundation, in Llano del Beal, “to explain in detail the proposed solutions.” Today there is a similar meeting in La Union.
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