Podrá revisar el acuerdo si se producen «cambios significativos» en las previsiones hidrológicas Aprobado un nuevo trasvase Tajo-Segura de 21,86 hm3

18-07-2008
Servimedia - Madrid El Consejo de Ministros aprobó hoy un nuevo trasvase de 21,86 hectómetros cúbicos (hm3) a través del acueducto Tajo- Segura para el abastecimiento humano y la supervivencia de las plantaciones leñosas-cítricas de esta última cuenca. El Gobierno tomó hoy esta decisión, tras recibir los informes correspondientes de la Comisión Central de Explotación del Acueducto Tajo-Segura y del Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino. La Dirección General del Agua del Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, y Medio Rural y Marino fijará el calendario de los trasvases, al mismo tiempo que quedan encomendadas a la Comisión Central de Explotación del Acueducto Tajo-Segura la coordinación y supervisión de los mismos. En el supuesto de que se produjeran «cambios significativos» respecto a las previsiones hidrológicas, el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino podrá someter al Consejo de Ministros una revisión del acuerdo adoptado. Preguntada sobre si el Gobierno teme una posible nueva «guerra del agua» entre comunidades autónomas en torno a la explotación de este trasvase, la vicepresidenta primera del Gobierno, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, fue tajante: «no lo tememos». «La gestión del agua la llevamos a cabo desde el diálogo con todas las comunidades autónomas, y hay que mantener el principio de solidaridad en los territorios», subrayó. Las reservas de los embalses de la Cabecera del Tajo se situaban en 392 hectómetros cúbicos a fecha 30 de junio, en el conjunto de Entrepeñas-Buendía, volumen superior a los 240 hectómetros cúbicos que establece la Ley del Plan Hidrológico Nacional del año 2001 como límite por debajo del cual está prohibido trasvasar agua. Leer+: http://www.larazon.es/55339/noticia/Sociedad/Aprobado_un_nuevo_trasvase_Tajo-Segura_de_21%2C86_hm3_para_abastecimiento_y_regad%EDo

MURCIA / Lluvias de 90 litros por metro cuadrado amenazan con desbordar el río Segura

LA VERDAD

Los más de 90 litros de agua por metro cuadrado que cayeron a lo largo de la madrugada de ayer en la zona de la sierra de la Cabeza del Asno estuvieron a punto de desbordar la rambla del Agua Amarga a la altura de la B-19, carretera comarcal que une Cieza con Calasparra, según informaron fuentes del Centro de Coordinación de Emergencias, 112.Llovió ininterrumpidamente durante toda la noche en el casco urbano de Cieza y, hacia las nueve de la mañana, los servicios de emergencias comenzaron a observar cómo iba creciendo progresivamente el nivel de la rambla, aunque finalmente no se desbordó.Las precipitaciones también provocaron varios desprendimientos sin importancia en montes cercanos a la ciudad y en la carretera de Abarán que no ocasionaron daños personales.Por la mañana, los efectivos del Parque Comarcal de Bomberos tuvieron que realizar dos salidas para achicar agua en sendos aparcamientos de las calles Cuesta del Molino y Calderón de la Barca, según informa Antonio Gómez.También a la entrada de Molina de Segura se produjeron grandes charcos en la carretera y pequeños desprendimientos por la lluvia.

Leer +:
http://www.laverdad.es/murcia/20080610/comarcas/murcia-lluvias-litros-metro-20080610.html

In the swing on the course that Jack built

May 14 2008 by Ian Davies

HAVING a quick refresher in the clubhouse there are several clues as to nature of the round you are about to enjoy/endure at La Torre Golf Resort.

Pictures, lots of them, of Jack Nicklaus playing out of bunkers.

There's no telling if the shots of the great man blasting his way out of the traps were snapped at this precise locale, but it's a pretty accurate indication of the sand between your toes and up your nose experience the average hit-and-hope hacker is bound to be subjected to.

Any directionally-challenged golfer, particularly those who may be desperately trying to subdue the effects of a Rioja-induced malaise is going to spend a lot of time beachcombing. You see, that's what they do on the courses in this part of the world.

Carved out of the semi-arid scrubland that defines this south east corner of Spain, the millions of tons of water piped into the region maintain baize-green putting surfaces and fairways with the qualities of a living room carpet but sand is the great indigenous resource and it is used to serious landscaping effect.

Apparently, Jack likes his bunkers, so he's come to the right place to continue his vision of golf course design across Europe, and most abundantly at the heart of the Murcia region between Alicante and Cartegena.

Nicklaus had a direct influence in design matters at La Torre and was literally hands-on at El Valle just down the road.

Go in search of a wayward drive on some holes there and you'd swear you'd lurched on to the set of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly... which you probably would have done because it's exactly the spot where spaghetti western maestro Sergio Leone took Clint and friends to shoot it out and pull faces at each other at the back at the end of the 1960s.

No doubt these days, though, rolling up there is sure to cost a few dollars more. And if you're going to stretch the allegory to snapping point, potentially a fistful.

Nicklaus is big news in this part of the world right now, and hand in hand with property developers Polaris he is helping reshape the Murcian landscape.

The pristine courses at both La Torre and and El Valle together with nearby Mar Menor and several others including Hacienda Riqueime, Terrazas de la Torre and La Loma -form centrepieces to the rapidly expanding Polaris empire whose towering cranes punctuate the skyline like industrial oases.

What they are creating across this erstwhile semi-agrarian landscape are more akin to small, self-sufficient townships - with stick and ball thrown in - than mere resorts.

The apartments, large and small, luxurious and more humble are flying up around courses.

And to service these communities gated for top security are super-markets, pharmacies, high-end stores, a la carte restaurants, bars and in a recent initiative, schools.

As a resident, once in, you would never have to leave.

It's a cosy arrangement if you've got the cash and, if you're in to your golf what could be better than having the playing surface virtually integral to your back garden?

So integral are some stretches of the courses, though, that the lucky apartment-dweller may find themselves harvesting quite a collection of balls in their swimming pool. Lucky if they're not kipping on the lie-lo sipping a Martini at the time, that is.

Of course, the Polaris philosophy is buy to retire, buy to rent, perhaps buy to share.

Golf membership packages are part of the deal for buyers but it is not a closed shop for the average golf tourist whose raison d'etre is not a second/retirement home.

But, property investment aside, if you are in the market for hols with a bit of golf thrown in then you can do far worse, and very probably no better than to roll up to the five star InterContinental Mar Menor.

Transfer time from the increasingly accessible Murcia Airport is just 15 minutes and despite its imposing scale, the InterContinental has kept the room count down to under 70 and instead turned the quality up to 11.

All neo-Moorish opulence - the Moors were the controlling force in the southern half of Spain between the eighth and 11th centuries and their influence still pervades the culture. Not least in the form of their crowning architectural achievement, the Alhambra Palace is only a couple of hundred kilo-metres away - the lowest standard room comfortably qualifies for suite status. The size and quality increases in more luxurious increments as you work your way up to the top floor where you could mis-place entourage, family and friends with ease.

Such a glorious realisation of cross-cultural, Afro/European symbiosis, in fact, that a modern day El Cid would just put his sword down, his feet up, tell Sophia Loren to get lost and enjoy a few sherberts with his new mates from north Africa.

Luxury? You almost expect a young Sophia Loren to come in and turn down the sheets... while you're still in bed.

In fact, with its attendant attractions, hitting the course might easily slip the mind.

Read+:

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/lifestyle-news/travel-news/travel-reports/2008/05/14/in-the-swing-on-the-course-that-jack-built-92746-20908385/

Water wars hit Spanish lettuce patch

Published Date: 08 June 2008

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

in Fortuna, Spain

FIELDS of lettuce and greenhouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel holiday homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses – dozens of them, all recently built – give way to the beach. At last, this corner of south-east Spain is thriving.

There is only one problem with the picture of bounty: this province, Murcia, is running out of water. Spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development, swaths of south-east Spain are steadily turning into desert.

Murcia, traditionally a poor farming region, has undergone a resort-building boom in recent years, even as many of its farmers have switched to more thirsty crops, encouraged by water transfer plans, which have become increasingly untenable. The combination has put new pressures on the land and its dwindling supply of water.

This year, farmers are fighting developers over water rights. They are fighting each other over who gets to water their crops. And in a sign of their mounting desperation, they are buying and selling water like gold on a burgeoning black market, mostly from illegal wells.

Southern Spain has long been plagued by cyclical drought, but the current crisis, scientists say, probably reflects a more permanent climate change brought on by global warming. And it is a harbinger of a new kind of conflict.

The battles of yesterday were fought over land. Those of the present centre on oil. But those of the future – one made hotter and drier by climate change in much of the world – seem likely to focus on water, they say.

"Water will be the environmental issue this year – the problem is urgent and immediate," said Barbara Helferrich, a spokeswoman for the European Union's Environment Directorate. "If you already have water shortages in spring, you know it's going to be a really bad summer."

Climate change means that creeping deserts may eventually drive 135 million people off their land, the United Nations estimates. Most of them are in the developing world. But Southern Europe is experiencing the problem now, its climate drying to the point that it is becoming more like Africa's, scientists say.

For Murcia, the water crisis has come already. And its arrival has been accelerated by developers and farmers who have followed water-hungry ventures highly unsuited to a drier, warmer climate: crops such as lettuce that need ample irrigation, resorts that promise a swimming pool in the garden, acres of freshly sodded golf courses that soak up millions of gallons a day.

"I come under a lot of pressure to release water from farmers and also from developers," said Antonio Perez Gracia, the water manager for Fortuna, sipping coffee with farmers in a bar in the town's dusty square. He rued the fact that he could provide each property owner with only 30% of its government-determined water allotment.

"I'm not sure what we'll do this summer," he added, noting that the local aquifer was sinking so quickly that the pumps would not reach it soon. "Farmers can complain as much as they want, but if there's no more water, there's no more water."

Ruben Vives, a farmer who relies on Perez Gracia's largess, said he could not afford the current black market water prices. "This year, my livelihood is in danger," said Vives, who has farmed low-water crop such as lemons here for nearly two decades.

The hundreds of thousands of wells – most of them illegal – that have in the past provided a temporary reprieve from thirst have depleted underground water to the point of no return. Water from northern Spain that was once transferred here has also slowed to a trickle, as wetter northern provinces are drying up, too.

The scramble for water has set off scandals. Local officials are in prison for taking payoffs to grant building permits in places where there is not adequate water. Chema Gil, a journalist who exposed one such scheme, has been subject to death threats, carries pepper spray and is guarded day and night be the Guardia Civil, a police force with military and civilian functions.

"The model of Murcia is completely unsustainable," Gil said. "We consume two and a half times more water than the system can recover. So where do you get it? Import it from elsewhere? Dry up the aquifer? With climate change we're heading into a cul-de-sac. All the water we're using to water lettuce and golf courses will be needed just to drink."

Facing a national crisis, Spain has become something of an unwitting laboratory, sponsoring a European conference on water issues this summer and announcing a national action plan this year to fight desertification. That plan includes a shift to more efficient methods of irrigation, as well as an extensive programme of desalinisation plants to provide the fresh water that nature does not.

The Spanish Environment Ministry estimates that one-third of the county is at risk of turning into desert from a combination of climate change and poor land use.

Still, national officials visibly bridle when asked about the "Africanisation" of Spain's climate – a term now common among scientists.

"We are in much better shape than Africa, but within the EU our situation is serious," said Antonio Serrano Rodríguez, the secretary general for land and biodiversity at Spain's Environment Ministry.

Still, Serrano and others acknowledge the broad outlines of the problem. "There will be places that can't be farmed any more, that were marginal and are now useless," Serrano said. "We have parts of the country that are close to the limit."

While southern Spain has always been dry and plagued by cyclical droughts, the average surface temperature in Spain has risen 2.7 degrees compared with about 1.4 degrees globally since 1880, records show.

Read+:
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Water-wars-hit-Spanish-lettuce.4163535.jp

La Región de Murcia acoge hoy una Visita de Estudios Internacional con participantes de ocho países

28-05-2008 11:49:53

La Región de Murcia acogerá a partir de hoy a los participantes en la Visita de Estudios Internacional que provienen de organizaciones de España, Francia, Grecia, Letonia, Turquía, Túnez, Argelia y Lituania, según informaron fuentes del Gobierno regional en un comunicado de prensa.

La directora del Instituto de la Juventud, Verónica López, recibirá mañana a los participantes de la actividad, que financiará el Programa Juventud en Acción, y a quienes acogerá la Plataforma del Voluntariado de la Región de Murcia.

El principal objetivo de esta visita, que se prolongará hasta el próximo sábado, será la mejora de la calidad en proyectos del Servicio Voluntario Europeo, explicó el Ejecutivo autonómico.

Para ello, los integrantes de esta actividad visitarán diferentes organizaciones públicas y privadas, como el Instituto de la Juventud de la Región de Murcia, la Concejalía de Juventud del Ayuntamientos de Cartagena, asociaciones de Cartagena y Lorca, y la Fundación AFIM.

Leer +:
http://www.diariomurcia.es/__n231782__comunidad-la_region_de_murcia_acoge_hoy_una_visita_de_estudios_internacional_con_participantes_de_ocho_paises.html

Murcia, primera comunidad en pagar ayudas al sector pesquero para compensar la subida del precio del gasóleo

28-05-2008 16:07:37

La Región de Murcia ha sido la primera comunidad en pagar las ayudas de mínimis para compensar los crecientes costes del gasóleo, con una cuantía de 523.000 euros, según afirmó hoy el consejero de Agricultura y Agua, Antonio Cerdá, quien mostró el apoyo y sensibilidad del Gobierno regional ante “una de las preocupaciones con las que se encuentra actualmente el sector”. El titular de Agricultura realizó estas declaraciones en la presentación de la memoria anual de pesca y acuicultura que realiza el Servicio de Pesca de la Consejería, y en el que se recogen los resultados del último ejercicio del sector regional, correspondientes a 2007. Cerdá afirmó que “Murcia ocupa tradicionalmente el primer puesto de mayor producción acuícola en el conjunto nacional”, con una producción de 7,5 millones de kilos y un valor comercializado de 59 millones de euros, frente a los 6,4 millones de kilos del ejercicio anterior, de las principales especies marinas cultivadas en la Región, como la dorada, lubina, y atún. Según el consejero murciano, esta producción representa “los niveles más altos de los últimos diez años”, a excepción de 2004, año en el que hubo un repunte mayor debido especialmente al incremento de atún. En relación a la pesca extractiva, las capturas desembarcadas y declaradas en las distintas lonjas y almadraba durante el pasado año fue de 6 millones de kilos con un importe de 14 millones de euros. El titular de Agricultura explicó que el censo de flota en la Región se contabilizó en 285 embarcaciones y 581 profesionales frente a los 567 de 2006 vinculados directamente a la actividad pesquera, mientras que el sector acuícola empleó a 372 trabajadores, 23 más que el año anterior en las distintas empresas que controlan las 14 instalaciones en mar. Red de vigilancia epidemiológica La Región de Murcia ha sido la primera comunidad española en obtener la acreditación ENAC norma UNE-17020 para realizar actuaciones de inspección reglamentaria en pesca y acuicultura. El consejero de murciano señaló que con esta certificación, “la Región es pionera en llevar actividades de inspección directamente por la Administración regional para el cumplimiento de la normativa comunitaria, estatal, y autonómica en esta materia”. En el apartado de ayudas, y “con la finalidad de fomentar la sostenibilidad del sector”, matizó Cerdá, en el ejercicio pasado se concedieron 400.000 euros para el período de veda de la flota de cerco y de arrastre, que benefició a un total de 54 embarcaciones. Asimismo, durante 2007 se puso en macha el programa operativo del Fondo Europeo de la Pesca (FEP), dotado para la Región de Murcia con 42 millones de euros hasta el año 2013, que suman una inversión total de 70 millones de euros. En relación a las inspecciones efectuadas en pesca y acuicultura, el consejero murciano explicó que éstas son ejecutadas por la Dirección General de Ganadería y Pesca –que realizó 796 en 2007- y la Guardia Civil. Así, “del total de inspecciones, se abrieron 299 expedientes sancionadores”, apuntó Cerdá, de las que 78 corresponden a comercialización, 41 a pesca profesional y 180 a pesca recreativa submarina y en superficie. El responsable de Agricultura destacó los esfuerzos realizados por la Administración regional para “contribuir a la mejora y modernización del sector pesquero regional y garantizar los máximos parámetros de sanidad y seguridad en la producciones”. Afirmó en este sentido que “la Región está creando una red de vigilancia epidemiológica” con la realización de 561 análisis en distintas especies, que dieron resultados negativos respecto a las enfermedades de necrosis, septicemia y encefalopatía. Por último, el consejero murciano apuntó que la Consejería, en colaboración con las cofradías de pescadores, está realizando la campaña de promoción ‘Pescado fresco litoral de Murcia’, que resalta, subrayó, “el valor añadido de la frescura de nuestros pescados que proceden de nuestras costas”, concluyó. Leido en: http://www.diariomurcia.es/__n232372__local-murcia2C_primera_comunidad_en_pagar_ayudas_al_sector_pesquero_para_compensar_la_subida_del_precio_del_gasoleo.html