The Ecologistas en Acción awards Black Flags to deficient beaches at the same time as Blue Flags are being awarded, so that ones that need work are not forgotten.
These Black Flags are ‘awarded’ each year around the time that politicians are congratulating themselves on their beaches that received Blue Flags, so it is a bit of a reminder that they still have a lot of work to carry out before they rest on their laurels.
The sort of things that will get you a Black Flag are seawater contamination, urban development intrusion and anything else that the ecologist consider needs addressing. They started in 1999 with the system.
This year they handed out 48 of them along Costa Tropical; Playa de Poniente and the cliffs between Almuñécar and Salobreña to mention two. In the case of the former, industrial waste-water disposal has been the main motive but also the fact that people were parking on the beach during the off season – it wasn’t until the gates of summer that Costas cracked down on parking on the beaches there.
The Acequia Culebra and the Acequia Camino Patria continue to carry contaminated water from the Polígono Alborán industrial estate and from the many illegal cortijos within the vega.
The ecologists also claim that the large fuel storage tanks occasionally leak out into the surrounding land. The two large open storage areas for gravel, etc, produce clouds of dust when there are strong winds.
Lastly, they are disappointed that the Almuñécar and Salobreña Town Halls continue to issue building licences to urbanizaciones not connected to the municipal sewage system. They are going ahead with developing land that was supposed to be protected under the Plan de Protección del Litoral along the cliffs and coves on their shared municipal boundaries, known as the Acantilados y Fondos Marinos Tesorillo-Salobreña. Furthermore what is left of the fish farm is being swept onto the shoreline by spring and autumn gales.
Down in Albuñol they’re happy bunnies because they weren’t ‘awarded’ any Black Flags this year, whereas continually before El Pozuelo and La Rábita received a good smattering of them.
(News: Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)