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article_detail
Date Published: 14/05/2020
ARCHIVED - Bathing jetties in Los Urrutias, Punta Brava and Estrella del Mar await final seal of approval
It’s taken more than three years to complete the bureaucratic paper trail required by this project
Image; A bathing jetty in Santiago de la Ribera, Playa Colón, unfortunately damaged in the Gota Fría last autumn.
A project which has been more than three years in the making is finally reaching the end of the bureaucratic processes which can slow down apparently simple initiatives to improve the facilities available for the public whilst respecting the environment; five bathing platforms for Los Urrutias, Punta Brava and Estrella del Mar, all of which lie within the Cartagena municipality.
This type of structure has been in use in the Mar Menor since the area first began to welcome city-dwelling tourists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although nowadays the challenge of bathing with decorum has been replaced by the need to create practical and environmentally friendly structures which can help bathers traverse first the dry mud and stony surfaces fringing the shores, followed by the slippery marine growth which accumulates on the rocks just offshore, taking the bather out to areas approximately 100 metres from the shore where the water is approximately a metre deep.
Each one of these bathing jetties will cater for around 100 people at a time.
We tend to forget today that the beaches which surround the Mar Menor itself are all artificial and are painstakingly laid and cleaned by the local councils annually, in a relentless battle with the elements to remove them from the shores, and that the natural shoreline is rough, scrubby and rocky. This can be seen in its natural form in some points of the lagoon, although modern tourists generally shy away from these “unkempt” natural areas replete with scrubby grasses and smelling of sea grass, migrating to the groomed beaches and netted swimming areas with their chiringuitos and walkways.
Constructing these bathing platforms (balnearios as they’re referred to locally) is the “greenest” option and these infrastructures will allow and improve public use of space which lies within the protection of the Red Natura 2000.
They are also part of a project for the creation of suitable habitat for the fixation of filtering microorganisms, (which implies an improvement in the quality of the bathing water), and help to prevent the displacement of sand from artificial beaches which usually ends up in the bottom of the lagoon after heavy rains!
The total projected cost for the five jetties is around 1.5 million euros and once the work has been awarded via a public contract system, the execution time is expected to be six months, so these jetties could conceivably be in use by next summer.
This week the regional Minister of Water, Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and the Environment, Antonio Luengo, met with representatives of the Cartagena Chamber of Commerce and the deputy mayoress of Cartagena, Noelia Arroyo, who will take over from the current mayoress half way through the four year term of office established by a voting pact.
Following the meeting it was announced that the final project has now been submitted to the national coastal department for approval after the regional government completed the documentation required by the General Directorate of the Coast and the Sea last year.
The project was first presented in 2017 and in April 2018 the regional government began the process to request permission to occupy the land-based maritime domain (all shorelines are considered public domain and no works may be undertaken without first gaining permission of “costas”), to which an Environmental Assessment process was also added; this was completed in September of 2019.
This involved a detailed description of the method of sampling and measurement of benthic macrophytes (an eelgrass growing in beds which is a good water quality indicator organism); an analysis of the revised proposed layout of the jetties to cause the least disturbance to the cymodocea (marine sea grass) growing in the proposed areas, and the plan for construction to avoid damaging the precious giant fan mussels (pinna nobillis or nacra) found in these waters.
With all paperwork now in order and fulfilling the requirements of the Directorate, the region is now waiting only for the rubber stamp of approval.
The Mayor of Los Alcázares also announced plans last autumn to construct further bathing jetties in his municipality following severe autumn storms which stripped the sand from the beach of Playa Carrion. This petition is likely to involve a similar timescale to this one, with a substantial paper trail from conception to fruition.
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