Environmental group awards black flag to Xàbia’s coastline
The environmental group has raised a ‘black flag’ in Xàbia due to the contamination as a result of wastewater discharge into the bay.
Wednesday 30th June 2021 – ÁLVARO MONFORT with Mike Smith
The Ecologistas en Acción environmental group has presented its annual “Black Flag” report in which Xàbia has been included. The report imitates the award of ‘Blue Flag’ status to focus attention on areas that have shown a deterioration of its marine ecosystem as a result of bad human practices.
The environmental group has raised a ‘black flag’ in Xàbia due to the contamination as a result of wastewater discharge into the bay, an area declared as one of special ecological interest with its nature reserve and great meadows of underwater posidonia.
Its main attack is the result of the faulty operation of the Wastewater Treatment Plan, which the group says has resulted in the massive dumping of wet wipes into the sea from broken or poorly closed urban wastewater pipes, and for which the plant itself has not publicly taken responsibility “when it is easy to demonstrate that the discharges come from it” due to spills just a few hundred metres out to sea. They point out that “due to its predictability (when there are torrential rains), measures should be taken to avoid this serious impact”.
Other reasons for raising the ‘black flag’ in Xàbia are the large amount of rubbish found on the seabed, the erosion of the coastline due to invasive constructions, the damage to the posidonia meadows due to the anchoring of pleasure boats in areas where mooring is not permitted or not enabled for it, the impact on species such as cormorant, and the privatization of the coastline in relation to the closure to public access of Cala Francés that runs through a private plot.
Among the solutions proposed by the group, they have called on the public to correctly dispose of wet wipes and not throw them down the toilet. They also want to influence the proper management of rainwater and wastewater by EDAD so that effective filtering takes place and waste and untreated water doesn’t reach the sea.
They have also called on administration to manage marine resources and protect users against attacks produced outside of the law. They say that the coastline must be public and must be properly managed to maintain unaltered marine habitats.
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