The spokesman of the Mar Menor Monitoring Committee, Emilio María Dolores, has regretted this Tuesday that the situation of the salt lagoon is «really bad» due to the entry of water, both by the wadis and on the surface, to this natural space during the last two weeks.
Emilio María Dolores made these statements at a press conference after participating in the second meeting of the Committee, which was chaired by the President of the Region of Murcia, Fernando López Miras.
According to the expert, more than 21 cubic hectometres of fresh water have entered the Mar Menor in the last 14 days as a result of the rains. «The Mar Menor has received 4 percent of its total volume, which can cause major changes in the flora and fauna, in addition to the dragging of runoff that deposited new sediments in areas where there were already problems of mud,» he said.
For María Dolores, this is «probably» the «worst month of March since 2016» in terms of the state of the Mar Menor. Thus, she has indicated that, according to the data collected this Monday at the twelve measuring stations, the average oxygen value is 7.06 mg/l; of chlorophyll, 0.92 mg/l; while salinity is «at rock bottom», with 40.33 PSU; turbidity is at 5.96 FTU and the average temperature is 15.14 degrees.
The meeting was also informed of the situation of the aquifer, «which has been recharged with 109 hectometres of rainwater that has fallen in the area of influence of the Mar Menor and which, according to initial estimates, is one metre higher than it was a month ago».
This represents «a new threat that in many cases is invisible because it causes the entry of water underground or through the El Albujón wadi, which continues to register a permanent inflow and compromises the stability of the ecosystem,» said Emilio María Dolores.
«It is very worrying that, beyond the periods of rainfall, a significant volume of fresh water enters permanently, as shown by the 300,000 cubic metres (0.3 hectometres) that entered through the El Albujón wadi in the first two months of the year,» said the spokesman for the Mar Menor Monitoring Committee.
Through the El Albujón wadi «we have gone from detecting the entry of 2,072 kilos of nitrates per day to more than 5,450 kilos, while phosphorous inputs have increased from 2.22 to 139.2 kilos per day,» the spokesman said.