Santa Ponça beach closed by mystery spillage into the sea

Part of Santa Ponça beach was closed off to the public by Calvia Council's Environmental department yesterday after waste water was reported in the sea. The spill was spotted flowing into the sea from the mouth of a river, but the origin of the effluent was still being investigated yesterday. Spokesperson for the Environment department, Miguel Vich, said that the decision was taken to close the beach after the routine bathing water checks revealed the contamination. As a result the area of the beach is closed to swimmers while the environmental experts locate the leakage and eradicate the problem. A team of three environmental engineers have been assigned to the problem. One of the schools of thought is that the waste is coming off one of the properties which boarder the river in to the sea. According to Vich, on one of the properties a lake has been found and samples are being taken of the water. The Calvia engineers are confident that the problem should be solved today. This is the second time in the past ten days one of Calvia's beaches has been hit by water contamination. Last week the beach at Portal Nous was closed because of a major sewage leak into the sea after one of the pumps at the Bendinat sewage plant broke down. Only the week before that, the same beach had to be treated for fleas and environmental engineers were called out to treat a leak reported in the Bay of Palma. Apparently a leak from the Palma sewage plant contaminated the sea off Can Pere Antonia and following a wave of protests and complaints from local residents, Palma water board EMAYA, was forced to take action. President of EMAYA, Maria Crespo, last week came under fire from the director general for health in the Balearics, for blaming the department for the loss of the European Union blue flags, a symbol of a clean beach - along the Playa de Palma,