Soller beach pollution fears

OTHER NEWS

23/08/2013 00:00

Soller.Hoteliers are not seeing eye to eye with the local council over the beach regeneration authorised earlier this year by Central Government's coastal department, as there are reports by tourists that bits of iron scrap and shards of glass are coming to the surface. The material used for the beach refill was apparently sediment that had been dredged up from ports around the Balearic Islands.

Periodic scientific analyses made of samples of the regenerated beach have not revealed any contamination but complaints by users continue. In fact it was local Mayor Carlos Simarro who was the first in voicing concerns.

Hoteliers in the Port have become increasingly worried by the emerging evidence and decided to get a full enquiry launched through a specialist laboratory. The results have still not been made officially public but Environment Councillor Juan Ruiz said yesterday that the results were likely to show that there was nothing wrong with the beach.

He said that in order to make sure, the Council is approaching the Balearic University for them to carry out their own analysis.
Ruiz said that if there are scraps of discarded material such as iron or bricks or glass embedded in the sand then they can be filtered out. He claimed that the real problem was that users were complaining that their skin was being stained red by the sand and wanted to know if it were due to some substance that had remained in the sediment.

Ruiz said the most important task facing the council was to be able to guarantee users that their health is no way at risk from the beach.
Meanwhile, hoteliers said that the independent report they had arranged was on the contrary, likely to confirm their worst fears.