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Date Published: 20/09/2021
ARCHIVED - Water supply will be cut off to farmers illegally irrigating crops
New powers to enforce the farm watering ban aim to ease pollution in the Mar Menor
The Hydrographic Confederation of Segura (CHS) will send out agents this week to make sure that irrigation is not continuing on the 2,100 hectares of the Mar Menor area where it has been banned. Watering of agricultural land close to the Mar Menor has been forbidden as an emergency measure due to the runoff of nitrates from the water into the sea, but some farmers have flouted the new rules and continued to water their crops anyway.
Last week, the CHS detected eight farms, most of them orange and lemon farms, where a total of 492.21 hectares were being illegally irrigated, despite the fines in place. As a further countermeasure, the Confederation has been given powers to cut off the water supply to these properties and any others it finds in its ongoing search this week.
Despite an additional ban on the use of nitrates in local farms, it was discovered last week that 641 kilos of the dangerous chemical were dumped into the Mar Menor in the space of just one day.
The aim of the new measures to stop watering farmland in the Mar Menor is to dismantle artificial agricultural estates that have grown up over the years and return the earth to its previous state of dry land or forest, in order to stop pollution in the Mar Menor and degradation of the indigenous wildlife. In the face of international outrage at the images of dead fish washing up on the shore, disgruntled farmers have protested their innocence with regards to their part in the environmental disaster.
Environmental groups in the Region of Murcia are planning to stage a large-scale protest on October 7 against the environmental destruction of the Mar Menor, which all are invited to join.
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