The Ministry will allocate 7.7 million for the environmental restoration of the mining boulevards of Cartagena and La Unión

The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco), Teresa Ribera, visited Cartagena on Thursday to report on the restoration of mining boulevards in the port city and La Unión. The company with public participation Tragsa will be in charge of executing the environmental restoration of the mining ravines of the Sierras de Cartagena and La Unión, for an amount of 7.7 million euros.

The interventions will be carried out in the Matildes, Beal, Ponce and Carrasquilla ravines, with the aim of reducing the contributions of solid flows contaminated with heavy metals, fertilizers and pesticides that reach the Mar Menor from these old industrial operations.

In parallel, the Miteco also entrusted Tragsa with the conservation and improvement of the headwaters of the boulevards of the Mar Menor basin, whose activities are part of the principle of the comprehensive recovery of the basin surrounding the Mar Menor.

The budget reaches 2.2 million euros and the execution period is 36 months and is part of line of action 2.2 of the Framework of Priority Actions to recover the Mar Menor.

The works mainly consist of the recovery of the public hydraulic domain, removal of waste in boulevards, elimination of disused structures on the banks of the riverbeds, elimination of invasive plant species, environmental restoration of the boulevards with native species, care of Forestry and maintenance of plantations and reinforcement of the banks of public domain riverbeds in the Ramblas of Campo de Cartagena and especially in the headwaters.

Visit to the Rambla del Albujón

Ribera also visited the Rambla del Albujón on Thursday, where he reported on the environmental recovery actions that will be carried out in that area and that are part of the green belt of the Mar Menor.

This project is one of the main actions planned by the central government for the recovery of the Mar Menor after decades of mining, urban and agricultural spills. It is a system of filters and wetlands, with a cost of 72.7 million euros, with which it is intended to extract 785 tons of nitrates per year.

Of those 72.7 million euros, 29.7 will be used for the acquisition of land and 42.1 for works. The green filters will occupy 21.9 hectares in the area closest to the lagoon, and the associated wetlands another 202; while the renaturation areas will add 373 hectares.

The minister’s agenda in the Region will continue on Friday in Los Alcázares, where she plans to meet with the mayors of the Mar Menor riverside to update them on the progress of the Miteco’s actions for the recovery of the Mar Menor. Later, she will travel to Murcia to inaugurate the technical office that will coordinate all the actions of the Central Government in the Mar Menor.