The Ecologistas en Acción have no doubt been struck off the Motril Town Hall, Christmas-card list for this year after they gave a Black Flag to Playa de Poniente.

In fact, so irritated are they over this ‘black mark’ against one of their beaches that the Town Hall is considering taking the ecologist assocation to court over it.

Mayor Luisa García Chamorro announced that the Legal Department are studying the judicial viability of sueing this environmental-protection association.

She considers that the ‘facts’ on which the ecologists based their decision are false, which can be demonstrated by examining several public documents issued by different administrative organisms.

“It is not true that cars are driving on the beach on Playa de Poniente or that discharges are reaching our beaches with assiduity [constantly]” she said, adding that the quality of the water off Motril beaches is amongst the best in Andalucia.

She considers that you simply shouldn’t cause such uncalled-for damage to the tourism sector right at the beginning of Summer.

The Councillor for Tourism, José Lemos, points out that the Junta de Andalucía carries out water-quality control along the whole coastline every fortnight and the latest results show that the sea water off its beaches is of excellent quality, which, he points out, is impossible if there were waste-water discharges.

He even went so far as to call those that wrote up the report as cowards because not once, he claims, had they contacted the Town Hall to collaborate with eliminating problems.

Editorial comment: Although anybody can understand the irritation and dismay upon receiving this slap in the face as July begins, it is only fair to point out that the Ecologist report did not say that people were parking on the beaches at present but that when they were drawing up the report, that was the situation, which could have been somethnig like three months ago, as they have had to examine and evaluate nearly 8,000 kilometres of coastline to present these yearly report.

Secondly, the report did not say that there were “constant” discharges onto the beaches but rather that they had detected cases.

Therefore, the response offered by the Mayor and the Councillor are tantamount to strawman arguments.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)