[5] It shares the origin of its etymology with the municipality of San Antonio Abad (in Catalan: Sant Antoni de Portmany) on the island of Ibiza.

[7] There are numerous events and celebrations that this district celebrates throughout the year and among them highlights the festival in honor of its patron saint James the Great on July 25, not forgetting the traditional procession of the Virgen del Carmen on July 16, Carnival, Easter and the Portman Theatre Festival which has two editions (December and June), organized by the company PortmanTeatro, which receives in each edition numerous theatrical successes both in the Region of Murcia and other companies in the rest of Spain.

On August 18, 2011, a serious fire originated in the residential complex La Manga Golf spread rapidly towards the Regional Park of Calblanque, Monte de las Cenizas and Peña del Águila.

The intense exploitation of the Sierra Minera de Cartagena since Roman times has left numerous archaeological remains throughout the area.

[10][11][12][13][14][15] Since the beginning of its exploitation, in 1957, of the pyrites of the Sierra Minera, the company SMM Peñarroya-España produced enormous quantities of mineral debris, the result of the open-pit extraction methods it used as a way of reducing costs.

In the early stages, this waste was deposited at the foot of the quarries, forming large pits, swamps, etc., which have destroyed the original landscape of the Sierra.

However, the biggest problem came from the residues from the washing of the materials used to obtain the ore. Due to its fluidity and volume, it was highly costly to deposit it in ponds or swamps.

[16] In view of this, and even before starting the exploitation, the French company Peñarroya, proposed the option of reducing costs by throwing the tailings from its washes directly into the Mediterranean Sea.

In a key decision, it develops a clear strategy, requesting the annulment of Portmán's declaration as a port of refuge and permission to expand the volume of discharges.

The mayor of La Unión sent a letter to the provincial governor, in which the offer of the French multinational was presented as the total disappearance of this mining and fishing town, and would deprive the Municipality of a source of exploitation, for tourism, the only resource that would be left when the deposits were exhausted.

In addition, the French company had the ability to mix its interests with those of the City Council of Cartagena, with those of the promoters who were beginning their expansion in La Manga (such as Tomás Maestre Aznar) and with the expansionist policy of the Ministry of Information and Tourism.

Precisely at the time of publication of the ministerial order, the company contributed the land on which the port of Cabo de Palos was to be built, plus 25,000,000 pesetas for its construction.

In the sentence, it recognized the validity of the reasons of the City Council of La Unión, but ruled in favor of the Peñarroya company, in a resolution that was considered to be typical of the late phase of the dictatorship.

In 1978 the company obtained permits to increase the volume of discharges, despite the fact that at this time the toxicity of the tailings dumped was already well known, both for the high concentration of heavy metals (cadmium, lead), and for the presence of toxic products used in the washing of the ore (copper sulfate, sodium cyanide, zinc sulfate, sulfuric acid, among others) that many years after the cessation of mining activity continues to affect the health of the inhabitants.

[21] In the last two decades the need for the regeneration of the Bay has become more evident, which has led to the local and regional organization of the administration, as well as a league of neighbors, to request investment funds from the state government to restore and clean its waters.

The final approval of the project, at national and European level, takes place in 2011 and involves the investment of 79,402,304 million euros by the Ministry of Environment.

But after the change of government in December of the same year, the situation has been in retreat, occurring in 2012 a withdrawal of the contracting process from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment, leaving the claims of the hamlet in a deadlock.

These rafts will become the place where, in the future, the tailings removed will be dredged and subsequently transferred to the Corta San José quarry, where precisely part of them came from in the past.

Authorities and technicians announced that for the following year a conveyor belt would be installed to run from the old port to a cut to transport the already dried tailings, which has not been carried out due to the environmental risk.

[24][25] There is a 2001 documentary film directed by Miguel Martí, entitled Portmán, a la sombra de Roberto with images and interviews that show the environmental disaster of the town and the Sierra Minera and the neighborhood conflict for the survival of Llano del Beal in the 80's of the 20th century.