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The Mayor of Águilas, Mari Carmen Moreno, accompanied by the Councillor for the Integral Water Cycle, José Luis Moreno, appeared this morning at the gates of the Águilas waste water treatment plant to urgently demand a new waste water treatment plant for Águilas in order to avoid problems such as the one which forced the closure of the beaches of La Colonia and Poniente yesterday.

 

The water of the Playa de la Colonia and Playa del Poniente beaches will remain closed to swimmers until further notice since there was an electrical problem at the waste water plant which caused a sewage spill that reached the sea through the Rambla del Charco.

 

The Public Health services, which are the competent body in this matter, will carry out the appropriate analyses and, until then, any beaches that may be affected will be closed as a precaution.

 

 

“Six years ago the Regional Ministry of Agriculture and the Directorate General for Water, which is the competent body, already had a construction project, but did not have the funding to carry it out,” explained the Mayor, who also wanted to make it clear that “the responsibility for the maintenance of these plants does not belong to the town councils. It is Esamur (Entity of Sanitation and Purification of the Region of Murcia) and, all citizens pay around 20 euros in their water bills every month for sanitation and maintenance that is clearly not being provided adequately.”

 

The Mayor continued, “In this situation there are three bodies that are throwing the ball without providing solutions, while the citizens of Águilas pay the consequences: On the one hand, the Regional Government’s Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for the construction of these plants; on the other hand, Esamur, which is responsible for sanitation and for guaranteeing the correct functioning of the plants; and finally, the Ministry of the Environment, which, when asked for a budget for the construction, together with the Department, of a new treatment plant in Águilas, claims that our plant is not included among those of general interest because it does not usually cause problems, something which we are already seeing is not the case.”

 

Moreno recalled that two years ago she urged both the Ministry and the regional government that it was necessary to provide a solution to a plant like the one in Águilas, created 40 years ago for the population at that time and which has now grown a lot and, as we are seeing, without capacity for proper operation.

 

In this sense and “in the face of the passivity of both administrations”, Mayor Moreno has stated that she will again request a meeting as a matter of urgency for the Ministry to launch the contract and tender for a treatment plant in Águilas that is suitable in size for the current population of the municipality, which swells in summer due to an influx of tourists.

 

In reference to the current situation of the beaches which are closed to bathing as a preventive measure, the Mayor said that a decision will not be taken until tomorrow, when the Public Health authority provides the definitive results of the analyses which are being carried out.

 

 

 

Image: Ayuntamiento de Águilas