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The long-running effort to clean up Portmán Bay has hit another delay, with the Coastal Authority in the Region of Murcia refusing to formally accept the environmental impact study submitted by consultants Proes-Ibermed.

 

Residents in La Unión had expected the basic implementation plan to reach the monitoring committee earlier this year, but according to sources close to the Ministry for Ecological Transition, the study needs more work before that can happen. It’s not a formal rejection, which would trigger strict correction deadlines, but the report falls short of what is required under environmental assessment law. Reviewers want a deeper look at alternatives, the risk of serious accidents and above all the impact on Natura 2000 protected sites and the bay's Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadows.

 

If extra fieldwork or modelling turns out to be necessary, the revised study could easily slip to November.

 

The project itself is substantial: a €52.6 million scheme with a 36-month build time, covering everything from importing 350,000 cubic metres of clean sand to installing more than 1,000 tonnes of sheet piles to stop contaminated material spreading through the water.

 

Black sands left behind by decades of mining will be neutralised with limestone filler, while extracted waste will be treated in drying ponds originally built between 2017 and 2018.

 

Following warnings from the Centre for Studies and Experimentation of Public Works about the dangers of large-scale dredging, the Ministry split the works into two phases. The first focuses on stabilising the coastline with a new beach over a kilometre long, modelled on El Castellar beach in Mazarrón. The second, larger phase will deal with sealing and containing the waste itself and creating an inland lagoon.

 

Until the environmental study clears this latest hurdle, the presentation to the monitoring committee, public consultation and the tender for the works all remain on hold.

 

 

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