Landfill restoration move

WORK to completely restore the contamination caused by the Proambiente landfill, which lay between Abanilla in Murcia region and La Murada in Orihuela, will take two or three years to complete.

This was revealed last week by the director generals for environmental quality of the Valencia and Murcia regional governments, Joan Piquer and Juan Madrigal, who had been asked to visit by the protest group Vertivega.

They were accompanied by the mayors of Abanilla and Orihuela, Ezequiel Alonso and Emilio Bascuñana.

Sr Piquer reminded that the Valencian authorities have invested €820,000 in the first phase of properly sealing the landfill pits on this side of the border. He praised the collaboration between the administrations in order to get rid of all the untreated waste.

The objective is to prevent this kind of malpractice from ever happening again and for European and national laws to be obeyed in the future, he said.

Vertivega spokesman Vicente Pérez said this work involves ‘covering several hectares of land that were combusting and channelling leachates (contaminated run-off) into drains’.

“The next step is to prevent the thousands of litres of leachates that accumulate every day from flowing to La Murada every time it rains,” he said.

For this reason his organisation has asked for a survey of the surrounding farms to establish what is causing these leachates, and for a basin to be constructed to collect this liquid – like the one already built in Abanilla.

Sr Piquer noted that the work will be suspended over the summer due to the high temperatures, and the final phase of restoring the vegetation with local species will be carried out in October.

Sr Alonso noted that the landfill had ‘endangered’ protected areas in Murcia and affected 39 hectares in the region.

So far Murcia regional government has invested more than €3.4 million.