On October 15, the Estero Domingo Rubio —a wetland of high environmental value in Huelva— appeared full of hundreds of thousands of dead fish in a Dantesque image. The Junta de Andalucía has just published its report on this catastrophe, for which it blames the toxins of two species of algae, as well as the heavy rains of those days. The NGO Ecologists in Action, who denounced the appearance of the specimens floating in the waters, does not share the official version and points rather to the discharges of phytosanitary and industrial products in the protected area. The Nature Protection Service of the Civil Guard (Seprona) plans to issue another report later.
The technicians of the Delegation of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy of the Junta de Andalucía have analyzed samples of the water and of the dead species (smooth) and have come to the conclusion that an unusually high tide, together with the heavy rains registered those days, caused much more water to enter the estuary than usual and with it the arrival of more fish. The rise in salinity, the drop in oxygen due to the amount of mullets and the presence of algae Prymnesium and Pseudonabaena catenate that have “proliferated disproportionately”, according to information provided by a spokesperson for the Ministry of Sustainability, would explain the massive death of fish. The Board does not plan to take any action to eradicate or limit the growth of these types of algae, for the moment, understanding that what happened just under a month ago is a “specific case” and “similar episodes” have not been detected.
The explanations do not fully satisfy those responsible for Ecologistas en Acción, who on October 25 found that even in large tides there are no saltwater inflows in such high quantities as to cause the high mortality of mullets that occurred in the estuary. They also warn that the mullet is a common species in the wetland, that it lives in fresh and salt water and that it had never before experienced such an episode of mortality. “The natural phenomenon can help, but it is not the main responsible for a mortality of this nature,” says Luis Domínguez, spokesman for Ecologists in Action in Huelva.
“The explanations of the Board, in the absence of knowing its report, do not completely convince us,” Domínguez abounds. “It is very striking that upstream of the estuary no fish have died and no algae have appeared,” he says. Although for the environmentalist there are still loose ends to tie up. “Could its proliferation be related to the excessive discharge of phytosanitary products? Could any of the water rafts found in the elevated areas overflow that day? [aumentando aún más el nivel del mar en la zona]?”, he wonders, pointing to the different loose ends that the conclusions of the Andalusian Administration raise for him. Domínguez also awaits the results of the tests that members of Seprona also collected.
From the organization they demand a more exhaustive investigation and point to the accumulation of agricultural farms that surround the estuary, to small industrial facilities or to possible polluting discharges from the factories that are in the port environment that the tides could have pushed into the waters of the estuary. “The runoff with remains of herbicides, fertilizers and phytosanitary products end up reaching there”, Dominguez maintains.
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Complaint before the Prosecutor’s Office
All these concerns have been transferred by Ecologists in Action to the Huelva Prosecutor’s Office through a complaint in which they request that it participate in the investigations opened by the regional Administration to purge responsibilities if it is confirmed that there is a criminal offense. In the letter they also draw attention to the importance of “transparency and information regarding the analytics” of the Board in a case “where there are important interests that can fully affect the survival of a protected area such as the Domingo Rubio estuary ”.
The protected wetland is located in the waters of the Tinto, Odiel and Piedras hydrographic demarcation and is a special protection area for birds (ZEPA) and a site of Community Interest (SCI) of the Natura 2000 Network of the European Union. Its management corresponds to the Junta de Andalucía. Domínguez warns of the poor state of conservation of this space and blames the autonomous Administration for the lack of involvement in its maintenance. “The place is a mess, it is abandoned and has become a passageway for the agricultural estates that surround it,” he maintains. From Ecologists in Action they also consider that the fact that the estuary is located between two roads that were raised from the ground to prevent the farms in the area from being flooded as a result of the rains has caused a change in its hydrological dynamics.
The organization demands that the Board take preventive measures to avoid new similar episodes and that it get involved in the management of the activities of intensive industrial agriculture that surrounds the Domingo Rubio estuary. “Instead of announcing with great fanfare the investments to increase irrigation in Andalusia, it could well begin to fulfill its obligations and at least remove the dead fish,” said Ecologistas en Acción in a statement on October 25. So, 10 days after thousands of dead fish were reported in the estuary, remains were still floating in its waters. The Board explained that, after spending four days working to clean the estuary, what had remained were decomposing remains that did not affect or have negative consequences for the wetland.
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