I have a horrible feeling that these pages are going to have to be renamed. Spotlight Puerto Pollensa Beach perhaps. Not very snappy, but something that might be more so - two words, one of them Sea; the other, an adjective starting with an ‘S’ (six letters) - probably wouldn’t see light of print. So, a spotlight it is, as it seems to be most weeks when it comes to the sea in Puerto Pollensa and what’s in it, and never forgetting the beaches themselves and what may or may not be on them.
Where to start this week’s round-up of the sort of problems at Pollensa Bay that Agatha Christie never concerned herself with? Well, it all started pretty swimmingly as it happens, and more or less literally so. Pollensa town hall was pleased to announce that the regional health ministry had given the waters of the municipality the all-clear.
Samples had been taken for analysis from the Albercutx, Tamarells and Llenaire beaches in the port, from Formentor beach, and from the Cala Barques and Cala Molins beaches in Cala Sant Vicenç.
All the beaches in the municipality, the town hall stated, were suitable for bathing. The health ministry had detected “a certain presence” of E.coli faecal bacteria in the Albercutx area, but this was well below the limit at which the beach would become unsuitable for bathing.
So, all was good. Until, that is, and the day after the town hall had made its health ministry announcement, the Association for the Defence of Puerto Pollensa released an image of a “faecal discharge” in the sea. The association went into overdrive. Why are the citizens being mistreated by having something beginning with an ‘S’ thrown at them?
Opposition parties were not slow in joining in, and the Alternativa pointed the finger at the Puerto Pollensa delegate, Andrés Nevado, which is what the Alternativa usually do. He has “exclusive dedication” (referring to the salary for being a full-time executive councillor) and is exclusively dedicated to not doing anything or saying anything. Allegedly.
Mayor Cifre leapt to the defence of the town hall (and Andrés) by identifying possible reasons for the discharge. Saying that pumps by the yacht club roundabout had been working perfectly and that there had been no discharge, he suggested that an old outfall that hasn’t been used for fifteen years (and which is the responsibility of the government’s Abaqua agency) or a large boat at the yacht club may have been the cause.
Whatever the source of the discharge, action was swiftly taken and all was good again.
But then, attention turned from the sea to the sand. Indignation was heaped on previous indignation when it was reported that Alcudia town hall, which had its beach services in place by the first of May, had coined in 140 grand from the rent of its sunloungers and parasols in June. This wasn’t on the scale of previous, pre-Covid Junes, but it was still a goodly sum and somewhat more than Pollensa had raked in. Which was? Erm.
Junts Avançam noted the Alcudia revenue, comparing this to “Pollensa without Blue Flags, without beach services and with contaminated water”. Alcudia doesn’t have Blue Flags either, for Alcudia’s own reasons and which aren’t the same as Pollensa’s. But be this as it may; the point was taken. However, the next thing we knew was that the town hall was posting photos of sunloungers and parasols on Facebook.
Summer had finally arrived at Puerto Pollensa and Cala Sant Vicenç beaches, albeit not at Formentor, where the town hall has removed the services concession from the hotel and has handed it to a new operator who will be paying seventy grand more. The new concession, Tomeu Cifre explained, will start “shortly”.
There you have it then. Just another week of Puerto Pollensa beaches spotlight. And in next week’s edition ...
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