Between Friday evening and Saturday morning, a section of about two kilometres or Río Guadalfeo between Lobres and Salobreña dried up completely, causing the death of thousands of fish, including specimens of two protected species.
The two protected species: the cacho (an Iberian chub and vulnerable in Andalucía) and the European eel (critically endangered on a global scale).
Fortunately, a local biologist was at hand, enjoying the long, weekend break and managed to rescue about 30 stranded eels using buckets, successfully saving 28 of them by returning them to where the river was running.
So what had happened? Environmentalists and experts state the river’s obligatory ‘ecological flow’ failed. They suspect either insufficient water release from the Rules Dam or excessive water diversion by local farmers at the Vélez de Benaudalla.
Furthermore, the Asociación para la Conservación Piscícola y de los Ecosistemas Acuáticos del Sur (ACPES) pointed out that man-made barriers and structures fragment the riverbed, preventing the fish from migrating to deeper water to escape the lack of flow.
Well, the people in charge of Rules Dam reacted to the complaints from local groups and the Salobreña Town Council, and increased the river’s flow by 100 litres per second (from 250 to 350 l/s), refilling the dry stretch and freeing surviving fish.
The Junta de Andalucía say they strictly adhered to the legal miniumum of 250 l/s for September – God knows that there is enough water behind the dam wall, after all. They attributed the incident to recent ‘operational adjustments’ after high rainfall in early 2026, followed by a severe lack of rain, which caused the released water from the dam to get soaked up by the riverbed before reaching the sea.
(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)
Keywords: Rio Guadalfeo, Dried Up, Dead Fish, Eels, Rules Dam, Minimum Water Release, Biologists, Town Council, Junta
news, andalucia, granada, costa tropical, salobrena, lobres, rio guadalfeo, dried up, dead fish, eels, rules dam, minimum water release, biologists, town council, junta
Well fancy that. They start off by damming the river. Water for crops etc. Then for over a year they muck about with pipework down towards salobrena. Then the retrofit the flow of the river back towards what it should have been. Now through stupidity they kill off the growing fish and eels. Might have the qualifications. But sitting on backside has a downside