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Date Published: 29/07/2021
ARCHIVED - Costas updates Mar Menor Protection Plan removing reference to clearance of silt deposits
This effectively means that the residents of Los Urrutias and Los Nietos must wait until next year for any sort of actions from the administrations.
This summer in Los Urrutias and Los Nietos, two of the towns on the inland shore of the Mar Menor which are traditionally at the heart of tourism in the Costa Cálida, the sea is all but empty of bathers due to the poor condition of the beaches and the amount of mud and vegetation which has accumulated in bathing areas, and the situation looks unlikely to change in the immediate future as local, regional and national governments all insist that the responsibility for cleaning up the area is not theirs.
The issue has been further complicated lately by the Costas department of the national Ministry for Ecological Transition, which includes the Department of the Environment, with the publication of an updated version of its Protection Plan for the Shore of the Mar Menor. This document makes no reference to the task of eliminating mud and dry matter from the shoreline, a responsibility which Costas had appeared to have taken on in the draft of the Plan in March 2020, and as a result residents of Los Nietos and Los Urrutias are complaining that no-one is prepared to solve a problem which has effectively left them without usable beaches and considerably reduced the attractiveness of the area to tourists this year.
While both the regional government of Murcia and the Town Hall of Cartagena have expressed a willingness to take on the responsibility, both claim that until they receive permission from the national government in the form of approval for the appropriate environmental impact studies and written authorisation, that they are unable to do so for fear of themselves breaching environmental legislation.
The frustration of locals is understandable. In March last year the draft version of the Costas plan made explicit reference to the removal of “mud in the water” at the beaches of Los Nietos, Estrella de Mar, Los Urrutias and Punta Brava, as well as to the removal of seaweed and other decomposing vegetation from the latter two. In addition, the tasks specified included the “withdrawal (by dredging) of mud” and the addition of sand in order to maintain the beach in Los Urrutias, Punta Brava and Los Nietos, and when it was announced in May of this year that these tasks would not be undertaken by the national Ministry but must instead be carried out by local and regional administrations, local Town Halls vocally expressed their displeasure.
On top of this, in September 2019 Teresa Ribera, the Minister for Ecological Transition, met the regional government minister for the Environment and stated that her staff were drawing up plans for the removal of mud and vegetation from the beaches of the Mar Menor and from the lagoon itself, adding that an appropriate method of dredging was being sought.
However, in spite of this apparent acceptance of the need to remove the deposits, the national Ministry has continued to maintain vociferously that the responsibility for maintaining beaches lies with the regional and local governments, not with Costas.
This commitment has now been dropped, and in anticipation of the decision the regional government has already stated its intention to undertake the work, setting aside a budget of 300,000 euros for actions at the beaches of Los Nietos, Los Urrutias and Villananitos in Lo Pagán. However, due to the need for environmental impact reports to be compiled and reviewed this project will not get under way until 2022.
At the same time, the Town Hall of Cartagena reports that it is awaiting authorization from the national Ministry to remove the mud from the shore.
In the meantime, though, seaweed continues to pile up along the shore, eventually rotting, creating a very unpleasant smell and adding to the mud which is already present, much to the anger of local residents.
Image 1: @MarMenorKO Twitter
Image 2: @sole2384 Twitter
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