The urban expansion of Salobreña around the base of the old town and out into the vega means that flooding will be a constant.
After all, the whole of the vega is low-lying once-upon-a-time marshland and before that large inlets for the sea. Almuñécar has the same problem, by the way on the P4 and behind San Cristóbal. The old Sol Melia on San Cristóbal has pumps running 24/7 down in its basement because of the water table.
So, the Town Hall wants to do something about it, hopefully with better practical intent than King Canute…
Accordingly, the Town Hall has drawn up the Proyecto de Restauración y Defensa del Bajo Guadalfeo, which consists of a series of “preventative and corrective” measures. The trouble is it would cost 15m euros, which is why they’re thinking of getting a grant for four million to at least make a start.
No surprises for guessing that this would come from the EU from within its Fundación Biodiversidad. The means to satisfy the requisites for receiving such a helping hand were unanimously approved at a recent Plenary Meeting of the Town Council.
The idea is to make the river five times wider than it actually is and improve the reinforced riverbanks. This means expanding the river 200 metres on the left-hand riverbank all the way down from the main road to the river mouth. Naturally, a lot of farmland will have to be expropriated.
The Mayor says that it will be done in stages thus allowing co-financing along the way. She also said that the Junta de Compensación for the TH2 will have to provide the corresponding charges for the development of that sector.
She concluded by saying that it was not the Town Hall who should be responsible to sorting out the problem of flooding, which is why “at no moment will municipal funds be involved.” In other words, other administrations such as the Mancomunidad, the Provincial Council and the Junta de Andalucía through its Department of Hydraulic Infrastructures should pick up the tab.
Editorial comment: shouldn’t somebody have thought about the area’s tendency to flooding before they issue building licences or draw up plans for hotel-only areas? Urban expansion doesn’t have to be inevitable as the population is shrinking – just look at the number of schools closing down through lack of new pupils.
The trouble is that a very large slice of municipal funding comes from building licences etc, so that tendency over the many decades has been “build and be damned!”
(News: Salobreña, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)