The Comunidad de Regantes Sandovala de Almuñécar, is fighting to stop massive freshwater extraction that is causing their aquifer to be contaminated with saltwater from the sea.

The crisis began three years ago during work in the basement of Mercadona to sink 519 anchor points to stop it from moving about on the water table, beneath.

This work required pumping out fresh water in massive amounts which, according to local farms, emptied the small Río Seco aquifer, allowing seawater to rush inland into their well located just 200 metres from the coast.

The initial salinisation completely wiped out medlar (níspero) crops, severely damaged avocados and mangoes, and caused major losses for chirimoya farmers.

Recent heavy rains (over 350 litres this year) briefly replenished the well, encouraging some of the 150 local farmers to replant their 80 hectares of tropical fruit.

However, since irrigation resumed, water levels have been dropping by 50 to 60 centimetres per month, creating an immediate risk of renewed salinisation if rains are delayed. Understandably, farmers are worried that if the well dries up again, seawater will advance further inland and contaminate higher-up wells in the Río Seco area.

Their concerns have been met by ‘administrative silence;’ in other words, they have been ignored, so they commissioned geological and agricultural reports by experts and, armed with this data, are preparing a lawsuit to force the administration to answer before a judge.

There is a solution, the Comunidad de Regantes Sandovala considers, which is to pump the extracted water back up the valley, rather than being dumped into the sea.

Readers might recall that the exact same problem was happening behind Las Góndolas in the P-4 where a housing project is going up; digging out foundations met the water table and they started dumping the fresh water into the nearby river. Complaints were made and the Town Hall reluctantly reacted, although it is a Provincial Council project.

Furthermore, when the built the hotel next to Mercadona (San Cristóbal), in 2001, the foundations came across the same problem and every since then, according to a hotel employee there since the beginning, the pumps have been working, pumping out fresh water.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)

Keywords: Wasting Fresh Water, Water Table, Farmers, Irrigation Well, Salt Water Intrusion

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