Just in the municipality of Torre Pacheco, a town with less than 40,000 inhabitants, there are five golf courses, according to official data updated by the Region of Murcia in February. There are five more in the capital of Murcia. They will be together with half of the 20 that exist in the community.
Murcia has become an oasis for golfers and for companies that participate in this business however one of the driest communities in all of Spainwith a lower amount of dam water and with very low amounts of rain. In fact, yesterday, August 13, 2024, the Segura River basin was declared unusual droughtwhich means restrictions for agriculture.
Despite this structural situation, the Spanish Association of Golf Managers (AEGG) has its headquarters in the region, and two of the 17 members of the Board of Directors are managers of Murcian clubs.
One of the vice presidents of AEGG is Ignacio Simancas, Director of Golf at Alze Groupa real estate company that “specializes in the development and management of real estate portfolios for banking entities, investment funds and private investors.” The Lorca Golf Course belongs to this group, the resort that Seprona investigated for allegedly stealing two million cubic meters of water per year through fifteen illegal wells. These events, according to the environmental protection body of the Civil Guard, can cause the lack of five springs and environmental damage worth 65 million euros.
The Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS), through its president, Mario Urrea, asked these data. Although he recognized the existence of illegal water withdrawals, Urrea assured that the CHS technicians could not confirm that the wells were used to extract water from the aquifer: “We cannot extrapolate what is consumed “We cannot give figures of damage to the public hydraulic domain,” he declared in the regional newspaper. The truth.
lamarea.com tried to contact Grupo Alze to find out more details about it, but did not receive a response to a series of calls or emails sent. Likewise, the Spanish Association of Golf Managers also did not respond to the questions raised.
For its part, the Association of Golf Entrepreneurs of the Region of Murcia (AEGRM) assures that the Lorca Golf Course has been closed for more than a year and claims to be unaware of the details of the investigation by the Civil Guard , although they denied the involvement of Ignacio Simancas in the alleged theft of water. Although the investigated resort continues to appear on the organization’s website as a partner, a spokesperson assured this medium that it will be deleted “over time.”
Green oasis in a semi-desert
The tourist website of the Region of Murcia encourages the community to go and play golf “365 days a year”: “Enjoy your favorite sport on the Costa Cálida. An ideal environment with plenty of 300 days of sunshine a year and an average temperature of 19ºC, where you can use the best shots of vegetables with the most intense green next to the sea”, you read in the advertising.
According to the data offered by the Association of Golf Entrepreneurs of the Region of Murcia (AEGRM), this industry “plays a transcendent role in combating seasonality and promoting the growth of the community”, creating an economic impact of 225 million euros, representing a contribution of 0.8% of the region’s GDP.
The organization assures that about 138,000 tourists will travel to Murcia “with the main purpose of playing golf” and will spend an average of “170 euros per day in the case of foreigners and 96 in the case of nationals.” All this means that the golf industry creates, directly and indirectly, 4,200 jobs in the Region of Murcia, always according to data from AEGRM.
Through satellite images it can be seen that most of the golf courses in the region have become green oases in contrast to the yellow and brown tones of the territory that surrounds them. From Royal Spanish Golf Federation (RFEG) points to this industry as an “example of sustainability and good use of water” and assures that 70% of the water used is “recycled” and “not suitable for human consumption or agriculture.”
From the Murcian Federation of Ecologists in Action, however, they pointed out almost 20 years ago that in the region there are many golf courses “in illegal situations, which fail to comply with the Environmental Impact Declaration that requires them to ensure that the source of water for irrigation comes from the purification of waste water, which the administration has not yet done anything to end this situation.
In its press release, the Civil Guard estimated that the illegal activity at the Lorca Golf Course “has been operating for about 17 years.” “It took some time to realize this, because we have been reporting situations like this for two decades,” said Julio Barea, Greenpeace Water Manager. The activist maintains that Lorca’s case is “very obvious because it has dried up in many springs”, but adds that this situation occurs “in many other cases”: “I don’t say that all golf courses do of practices that are illegal, but for 20 years we have documented illegal wells or pipes that even took water from the Tajo-Segura transfer.”
Although the data varies depending on the source consulted, Greenpeace took the records of the Geological and Mining Institute to conclude that an 18-hole course, which occupies between 40 and 45 hectares, requires 625,000 cubic meters of water every year. In total, the 20 golf courses in the Region of Murcia consume 72 cubic hectometres per year, one sixth of the region’s domestic water consumption.
The industry defends that a high percentage of the water resources needed to maintain golf courses comes from converting waste that is not suitable for human consumption or irrigation; a speech that, however, Julio Barea will not accept: “To begin with, the treatment of wastewater has a very high cost and retains a rather strong smell, so it must be mixed with clean water. In addition, usually they say that they irrigate the rest of the water from the developments built around the golf courses, but to get all the water they need from there they have to be full all year round, at full capacity, and that will not happen. What they are saying is not true,” said a Greenpeace spokesperson.
Because of this, according to Julio Barea, golf courses are betting on the construction of wells “sometimes legal and sometimes illegal” to cover the necessary water needs: “There is no point in having 500 golf courses in Spainwith the consumption of water it requires, available to a privileged minority who practice this sport. And even more if we consider that the community with the most farms is Andalusia, one of the regions most affected by repeated droughts,” concluded the activist.
*Update: 09:30h