The Candelaria bathing areas are the only ones that remain closed on the island due to some spots of piche that between August 30 and last Tuesday forced the adoption of various restriction measures on bathing on the beaches of three other municipalities: Santa Cruz from Tenerife, Güímar and Arafo. The latter have reopened but their town councils remain vigilant, with the support of the state and Canary Islands governments, main responsible for the control of marine pollution.
The follow-up operation does not rule out that new spots may reach Tenerife’s coasts, small and scattered as in previous days, once the week-long calm at sea ended yesterday. The central Government is using the satellites of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the means of Maritime Rescue, as well as the Government of the Canary Islands the helicopter of the Emergency and Rescue Group (GES) based in La Guancha and the ship Mar Canary of Ecological Transition, to follow this new episode of pollution in the sea that Tenerife suffers. Added to the pit stains were the sewage discharges that forced the closure of three beaches in Granadilla – El Médano, Leocadio Machado and Los Abrigos – on Friday and Saturday of last week.
Yesterday, eleven days after the closure of the first beach due to the arrival of piche –Roque de las Bodegas, in Anaga, Santa Cruz–, the first official statement from a public institution with responsibilities in marine pollution arrived. The Maritime Captaincy of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, dependent on the Ministry of Transport and Mobility, reported that in recent days inspections have been carried out on the coast of Tenerife, with the boats and the helicopter of Maritime Rescue, “Without detecting spots in the sea.” The Spanish maritime administration that monitors discharges in the seas, using the satellite of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), “has not detected any discharges from ships either.” Similarly, other bodies, such as the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard or the 1-1-2 Emergency and Security Coordination Center of the Government of the Canary Islands “have carried out similar actions with the same result.”
«We can affirm that in recent days no stain has been detected in the sea“Concludes the statement from the Maritime Captaincy, which also ensures that” it maintains continuous vigilance to prevent and fight any spillage from ships at sea. ” “The investigation and sanction of discharges into the sea that could come from land or the fight against pollution on the coast is not the object of the jurisdiction of the Maritime Captaincy”, details the note, in which the state maritime control body ends up assuring that it will continue to work “on a permanent basis” in monitoring the coasts “to prevent and combat any spillage from ships that may occur at sea.”
While the authorities hope to soon be able to reopen bathing areas as important to the Candelariero municipality as Punta Larga or Los Guanches, the political row over the piche crisis continues. The CC-PNC group in the Cabildo de Tenerife criticized yesterday, through a statement, “the delay and lack of coordination of the PSOE and Citizens” to seek a solution to the hydrocarbon spills that have affected four municipalities on the island and have forced to adopt restrictions on 16 beaches. The nationalist councilor Blanca Pérez defends that “the first spills were at the end of August but it was on Wednesday when the Cabildo came out to ask for explanations, when it should have been leading and looking for solutions from day one.” «That delay shows the ignorance and the lack of interest that the PSOE has about Tenerife».
For Pérez, “we are facing another clear example of the lack of leadership and management of the PSOE.” In this sense, he points out that the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, one of the affected municipalities, “requested an investigation from September 1”. “That is the difference between a mayor like Bermúdez, who is aware of his municipality, and that of the PSOE councilors in the Cabildo, who do not really know what they are doing.”
