The Spanish government today unveiled a series of measures in an effort to save Mar Menor, one of the largest salty lagoons in Europe, which is dying of nitrate pollution from agricultural sources.
The € 382 million project aims to stop agricultural practices accused of polluting this vast 135-square-kilometer saltwater area in southeastern Spain.
“The environmental crisis in Mar Menor, or small sea, is unbearable, the damage must stop immediately,” said Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera during a visit to the Murcia region to present government measures.
The images of fish with the agony of death, their mouths almost out of the water in an attempt to breathe some air as well as their dead like ones stacked by the thousands in baskets on the sand, had shocked the public.
Experts estimated that these fish were dying from a lack of oxygen caused by the hundreds of tons of nitrate fertilizers dumped into the water, causing a phenomenon called “eutrophication”.
The plan drawn up by the left-wing government, which covers the period 2022 to 2026, includes in particular the end of illegal irrigation, the interruption of water supply to non-irrigated farms, the review of sewage permits and the surveillance of livestock farms. .
The project also aims to promote environmental regeneration projects to support biodiversity in and around the lagoon, in particular the creation of a 1.5 km protection zone around it.
In contact with Agence France-Presse, the Environmentalists in Action welcomed the plan, while regretting that there was no “involvement” of the regional government to end the problem and called for more “coordination” between Madrid, the regional authorities and the municipality, as well as between businesses and civil society, to address the issue of the lagoon.
During the crisis this summer, Ribera accused regional authorities of turning a blind eye to violations committed in the Cartagena Plain, an intensive farming area surrounding the lagoon.
In early October, the NGO ClientEarth and Environmentalists in Action sued the European Commission over Spain’s “persistent inability” to protect Mar Menor, demanding “immediate action”.
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