Recently the Ministry of Ecological Transition rejected the construction project of a 175-meter breakwater in Castillo de Baños.

This coastal protection structure would have generated a beach area of some 30,000 cu/m for this Costa Tropical town, badly needed for its tourism offer. Naturally, other town halls awaiting the building of promised breakwaters sat up and began to worry if theirs would be cancelled too.

There is hope for the Castillo de Baños project because it could be modified and then accepted, which would provoke a convenient delay for the Central Government, which is continually promising the prompt initiation of similar structures in Motril, to mention just one coastal town.

But not everybody is complaining because Ecologists in Action are quite happy with the Ministry’s decision as it represents ” hope for our coast and our sea.” The ecologist have always been against the building of breakwaters because in their opinion “the coast is already filled with concrete.” They basically want further coastal development (hotels and yet more housing) to be halted and Salobreña’s last virgin beaches left as they are.

The provincial secretary for  Ecologists in Action, Juan Antonio Martínez, explained that the Castillos breakwater would have caused “great environmental impact, mainly, to the seabed Posidonia meadows that exist in the area.

Back to the resolution published in the Official State Gazette, where it is stated that the main environmental impact due to the construction of this breakwater is the presence less than one hundred meters away of a Posidonia oceanica meadow cataloged as a habitat of community interest (HIC) and an area of sand banks permanently covered by shallow waters also of special protection and preservation.

So, it appears, it’s a question of beaches vs seabeds.

(News/Noticias: Castillo de Baños, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)