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Mar Menor court ruling over brine dump equivalent to 64 Olympic swimming pools
A Torre Pacheco agricultural company has been held responsible for part of the nitrate pollution entering the lagoon between 2012 and 2016
A Murcia agricultural company has been ordered to pay almost €100,000 for environmental damage caused by a desalination plant that discharged huge quantities of salty wastewater into the Mar Menor.
The High Court of Justice of the Region of Murcia (TSJMU) has rejected the company’s appeal against a 2024 order requiring it to cover the cost of measures taken by the regional government to prevent and repair the damage.
The amount has been set at €97,603.30, with the court ruling that there was sufficient evidence linking the company’s activities to nitrate pollution entering the lagoon.
The case centres on a desalination plant at a farm in Torre Pacheco. Built in 1996, the facility was capable of producing around 400 cubic metres of water a day by extracting groundwater from wells.
The problem was what happened to the wastewater left behind by the process. The plant produced brine containing nitrates which was sent through a pipeline to the Los Alcázares pumping station before being discharged into the Mar Menor without treatment.
Between 2012 and 2016, the plant is estimated to have released around 159,400 cubic metres of brine. That’s roughly equivalent to 64 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The company argued that it couldn't be held responsible because pollution in the Mar Menor comes from a number of different sources. However, the court found that a specific contribution could be linked to the company.
The judges referred to reports from the Guardia Civil, the Public Prosecutor's Office and technical experts. These reports attributed around 5% of the nitrates from desalination plants in the area to the company and described the environmental impact as chronic.
The ruling also reinforces the principle that those responsible for environmental damage can be required to pay for measures to deal with it, even where pollution has several different sources.
The court rejected the company's other arguments over delays and procedural issues, while also making clear that a previous provisional dismissal in criminal proceedings didn't prevent separate environmental liability proceedings from going ahead.
The company has been ordered to pay court costs of up to €3,000, although an appeal to Spain's Supreme Court remains possible.
Image: Marta T López / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
