Starting this Thursday, the Mar Menor enters a new stage where the administrations that must ensure its health have begun to understand each other around a table. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the regional Government have held the first meeting of the Inter-administrative Committee of the lagoon together with the ten municipalities of the catchment basin in an environment of “full coordination” between all, as the Secretary of State has confessed. of the Environment, Hugo Morán, and the counselor of the branch, Juan María Vázquez. This first meeting has resulted in the agreement to form two technical working groups to, on the one hand, bring together all the information and monitoring data of the lagoon on a single platform where both administrations can access and, on the other hand, coordinate the different recovery projects promoted in the Mar Menor and its surroundings.
One of the first objectives that both the Ministry and the Community have agreed to address is to reduce “as much as possible” the permanent flow that circulates through the Albujón Rambla, loaded with agricultural nitrates that end up flowing into the lagoon. This has been stated by Minister Vázquez, while Morán has announced that the preparation of the tender for the work of the Segura Hydrographic Confederation in the channel is “in an advanced state”, an action that for the Ministry is “the backbone » of the framework of actions that it promotes with 484 million euros in the Mar Menor. This boulevard is a “critical point where the investment process began and where it will end.” The Ministry has planned a green filter in the final stretch of the promenade that will help clean the water naturally while the Ministry is pending finishing the drafting of its bioreactors.
For Vázquez, “a new stage of coordination begins between administrations with areas of competence that sometimes have quite diffuse lines,” that is, for the first time the two parallel recovery projects promoted by both governments will follow the same path. “A single window”, as the Secretary of State for the Environment has defined the new commission, where each one will have their “defined powers.” Morán recalled that this mandate arises from the Law of the Mar Menor, from which he considers that “a lot has been gained in a short time” in Vázquez's new stage as head of the Environment, but he emphasizes that the norm “has ahead a journey to take to complete its fulfillment.
Both administrations have also taken this Thursday the first steps towards the formation of the future scientific committee of the lagoon, which will be made up of 21 experts from regional universities (UMU, UPCT and UCAM), from research centers such as Imida, the Cebas or the IEO, and from technicians from the Ministry and the Ministry. Four of them will be chosen at a national and international level through an open participation process, similar to competitive examinations, where scientists who have previously worked on the environmental problems presented by coastal lagoons such as the Mar Menor may apply. “It would not have been possible to get to where we have without the cooperation process of the scientific community,” ratified number 2 of Ecological Transition. Precisely, the purpose of one of the two technical groups created today is to share the results of the research and monitoring projects in the lagoon.
Review of route sheets
Both institutions have also shared how advanced their recovery plans are in the lagoon. Vázquez has placed emphasis on the recovery of the wetlands around the Mar Menor, such as El Carmolí, a 300-hectare space that passed into the hands of the Community last year. He has advanced that the regional government has agreed to establish a multi-year contract for the removal of biomass from the shores of the lagoon, with an investment of 15.6 million euros for 2025 and 2026, plus another million for the marking of the areas. bathroom
Another star project for the Community is the rehabilitation of the old San Javier airport to install the new research and recovery center for endangered species of the Mar Menor, a milestone for which it already has the transfer of the facilities by the Ministry of Defense . The counselor, who during this first year of life of the inter-administrative committee will hold its presidency (next year it will fall to the Ministry), added as priorities of his department the recovery of part of the Marchamalo salt mines and the livestock trails of the basin.
The Secretary of State for the Environment, in his part of the accountability, pointed out that the Ministry has executed projects worth 79 million euros and another 111 million are already committed, so the budget of the framework of actions is approaching to the equator of its total expenditure “with a reasonable pace of execution within the established calendar.” Three plans are planned for its green belt: the creation of three semi-natural wetlands (115 hectares), five green filters (270 hectares) and several renaturalization areas on land that will cover 534 hectares. Morán has also highlighted the two lines of aid available to city councils to combat flood zones and damage to their sanitation networks: “We have given them tools [a los municipios] so that within their powers they can advance beyond what their treasuries allow them to do. “They have taken the lead in their part.”
The work already completed in the restoration of the mining ravines of the mountains of Cartagena and La Unión has allowed “the first positive consequences to be observed,” highlighted Morán, who recalled that the Ministry must complete the committed actions before 2026, the maximum deadline. for the execution of the European recovery funds from which the Mar Menor has been nourished.
#Mar #Menor #commission #sets #sights #reducing #flow #Albujón #truth
