This place in the south-east of Spain could be idyllic if he had been massively urbanized, then contaminated with tons of nitrates. A citizen initiative wants to give him a legal personality, to save him.
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Like a postcard landscape, the sun goes down on the minor sea, illuminating its last rays the volcanic and wild islands of the Baron and Perdiguera, some sailboats rocked by the waves and, further south, the mountains of The Sierra de Cartagena. Even in the middle of October, young children, in swimsuit, still play the evening falling near the calm and temperate waters of this huge salt lagoon of 135 km 2 , populated with flamingos, Giant hippocamps and pearls, separated from the Mediterranean by a sand arm 22 km long, the Manga del Mar Menor. This unique ecosystem located in the region of Murcia, southeast of Spain, could be idyllic if it had been massively urbanized from the 1960s and contaminated for decades by the tonnes of nitrates discharged by the Agriculture and breeding.
“I do not bathe anymore, it disgusts me all these algae and smell: if it continues, it will look like a pond”, regrets Sagrario Lopez, 54 years old, sitting on a folding chair placed on the gray sand San Pedro del Pinatar, alongside his daughter and two grandchildren. “Twenty years ago, it was something else, the water was transparent and we saw tons of fish. Now, my friends no longer want to come,” adds this Madrilenian come over here the Bridge of the Spanish National Day, October 12th.
Tons of fish, the summer workers have seen this summer, between August 15 and 25: Dead. Caught trapped in pockets of anoxia caused by the eutrophication of the lagoon, nearly five tonnes of fish have come to die near the shore, desperately leaving their mouths with oxygen. While the regional administration pointed to the effects of a possible temperatures, The Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) was clear in its report, delivered on September 13 : the principal responsible for this episode of mortality is “the incessant penetration Fertilizer in the lagoon (…). The excess of phytoplankton limits the entrance of the light, which affects photosynthesis and the availability of oxygen in the water up to levels close to hypoxia “.
After the “green soup” episode of 2016 – when the entire lagoon has been under the effect of the proliferation of microalgae, causing the loss of almost 80% of the underwater vegetation – and then the Sudden death of more than 3 tons of fish in October 2019 as a result of torrential rains, its conclusion is without appeal: “The Lagunaire ecosystem has lost its regulatory capacity.”
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