It prepares the tender for the partial renewal of the pumping of the Rambla, and has authorized the projects for the total improvement of the infrastructure in 2025
Six months after the Council of Ministers declared the actions in the Mar Menor to be of General State Interest, the works to renew the Albujón promenade are pending tender. There is a first phase for the partial renewal, which will require an execution time; and a second more complete part, which will be undertaken in the next three years. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition considers that it is “a necessary infrastructure, in the short term, to limit the entry of nutrients into the Mar Menor”, as recognized in the latest monitoring report on the priority actions to recover the lagoon.
Within all the planned measures and the implementation schedule, the discharge of the Albujón is considered the fastest action to stop the entry of nutrients. The facility that currently exists has “a significant degree of deterioration,” says the Ministry. In fact, pumping has been paralyzed since March, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, with which an important volume of nutrients is entering the lagoon, a large part of the outcrops due to the high water table of the aquifer.
Continuous breakdowns
The drive depends on the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS), whose management was entrusted to the public company Tragsa. The objective is to prevent the entry of these flows into the Mar Menor and pump them from the mouth of the boulevard to the irrigation channels of the Campo de Cartagena Post-Trash, where they mix with the waters of the Tagus and the desalination plants, to reduce salinity and the concentration of nitrates. This is how it has been operating for the last two years, although with low hydraulic capacity and many breakdowns. The Ministry gave a provisional authorization for this operating scheme and for these flows to be used for irrigation through this dilution system.
The Framework of Priority Actions foresees an investment of 15 million euros to optimize the drive in two phases. The first projects for the partial renovation, worth 1.2 million, “have already been submitted to public information and the file for bidding is being prepared,” the Ministry reported. The second phase consists of the total renovation of the drive in 2025, at a cost of 13.7 million euros. The General Directorate of Water of the Ministry has authorized the drafting of three projects.
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