The road through Torrevieja Lake

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From today's Information an article on the road currently visible across Torrevieja Lake. Some pictures in the article as well

https://www.informacion.es/vega-baja/20 ... 19994.html

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New salt roads for the pink lagoon of Torrevieja

The salt works will remove 40,000 tons of the mineral accumulated decades ago on the banks. The extraction is used to de-ice roads and reduces the impact of DANA on production

The northeast shore of the pink lagoon of Torrevieja lives a frenetic activity. In the distance you cannot distinguish what the "retro" heavy machinery does with front shovels and trucks. Just what looks like specks on the lagoon. But no. They are roads made of salt extracted from the banks and which is then transported to the industrial complex to form part of one of those huge mountains of white mineral that identify the landscape of the city.

If something defines the activity of the New Leasing Company of Torrevieja (NCAST) it is its peculiar technology to extract salt from the bed of the lagoon during almost the whole year. A floating platform, the harvester, "scratches" the sheet of salt that precipitates at the bottom after crystallizing due to the concentration of brine in the water. However, salt production has been greatly affected by the torrential rains in September 2019 and the storm Gloria in January this year. The unusual volume of fresh water that the lagoon received delayed the "setting" of the salt and the start of the extraction campaign that began in October,
although it normally takes place in August. There is already salt in the lagoon but the market needs more. Much more.
exceptional situations extraordinary measures . The engineers of the company - part of a French multinational - got down to work. They thought that it was possible to go where the combine - which needs at least 80 centimeters of water to work - has never done so in 70 years: the banks. Anyone who knows the area of ​​the pink lagoon knows of the white salt beaches that extend for several hundred meters and that barely cover a few centimeters of water.

This is where the salinera plans to plans to extract an extra 40,000 tons until April and allocate it to the road de-icing market. It is less pure than that precipitated by crystallization and by the action of the sun and the east wind on the bed of the wetland, but it will serve to round off a production that falls short and that under normal conditions reaches more than half a million tons, placing to the Torrevieja salt flats as the most important in Europe.

Not even the oldest salineros knew of such an extraction operation. The introduction of a specific and unique technology in the world to produce salt without the need to drain the lagoon as happens in conventional salt pans, was introduced in the 50s of the last century. It was perfected with the brine product from Pinoso in the early seventies and with the "salt ribbon" in the eighties.
Amigos de los Humedales del Sur de Alicante (AHSA), a collective attentive to the environmental situation of the wetland, warns about the possible impact of this form of production. It is not for less. The Torrevieja and La Mata lagoons are protected as a Natural Park, are a Site of Community Importance and a Special Protection Area for Birds. AHSA is missing a minimum previous project of what the company was going to do because it can affect the birdlife, especially the presence of raptors on the north shore of Los Montesinos . The salt works clarifies that it has informed the Generalitat and Seprona.