ARCHIVED - Calls for urgent completion of Torre Pacheco floodwater tank after another overflow last week
Untreated water from the drainage and sewage network makes its way into the Mar Menor in episodes of heavy rain
The heavy rain which fell in parts of the Campo de Cartagena last Thursday reawakened fears that surface water running off into the Mar Menor could take with it substances which are harmful to the marine environment of the lagoon, and for this reason technicians from the CHS water infrastructures administration body visited the wastewater treatment plant in Torre Pacheco to take samples of an overflow produced by the storm.
The surplus water from the municipal EDAR plant flows out into the Rambla del Albujón, the natural flood channel which in turn takes water into the Mar Menor and which is known to have carried huge quantities of fertilizer and nitrates from the farmland of the Campo de Cartagena into the lagoon over recent decades. The samples will be checked to ascertain whether contamination parameters were being exceeded and whether the overflow corresponds to the levels authorized for the facility, amid suspicions that individuals may have attempted to dump harmful substances under cover of the heavy rain.
Such sampling by the CHS is a new procedure and has come in response to pressure from local residents and ecologists to monitor more closely the water running off into the Mar Menor. It is a fact that in Torre Pacheco episodes of heavy rain always cause overflows of untreated water from stormwater tanks and the sewage and drainage networks, and it is this water which causes most concern rather than that of the wastewater treatment plant itself.
In this context, Antonio León, the local Mayor, is calling for the on-going work to increase the capacity of storage tanks to be treated as high priority. The construction of a 6,000-cubic-metre tank and an overflow pool of 60,000 cubic metres began late last year – more than 12 months after the contract had been awarded - and is budgeted to cost a total of 3.5 million euros: when completed, it is anticipated that the problem will be solved in all but the most extreme episodes of torrential rain.