The City Hall of Santa Cruz has launched the new floating water polo field in the Sports Area of Las Teresitas beach. During a ceremony held this morning, with the presence of the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, and councilor Alicia Cebrián, the men’s and women’s teams of the CN Echeyde Santa Cruz were present, completing a new training session of their respective preseason.
As stated in the project’s environmental study, the floating water polo field is made up of two competition goals and a rectangle, which will occupy 135 square meters (15 by 9 metres). This action is part of the objectives of the City Council to create a sports area in Las Teresitas, where there are already tennis and beach volleyball courts, waiting to be completed with a calisthenics area and another multipurpose area.
The new court has been set up at a minimum distance of 5 meters from the breakwater located on the north breakwater of Las Teresitas beach, which is located in the special conservation area called Sebadales de San Andrés.
The mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, pointed out that “one of the great objectives that the City Council had set itself with its councilor Alicia Cebrián at the head, is being achieved, which is that Las Teresitas becomes a free-use sports space, with tennis and beach volleyball, and now with water polo in the sea, which, for sure, will be very well received by the citizens and visitors to the beach”.
Councilwoman Alicia Cebrián, for her part, pointed out that “with this floating field, the possibilities to practice sports on the beach are expanded, completely free of charge. It is an opportunity to take advantage of the proximity of the beach to the city, and that thanks to the advantages of our climate allows multiple modalities to be developed in the sports space that is being completed in Las Teresitas”.
The person in charge of Sports, in addition, pointed out that “since we arrived at the City Council we set ourselves the objective of carrying out this project that allowed us to facilitate the practice of this sport modality in the sea, and therefore, the procedure to install the field was promoted. requested in his day by the Echeyde in the same location”.
Alicia Cebrián added that “it can be used and enjoyed both by free users and by clubs in the municipality with total freedom, so the Sports Service expects the use of the field to be self-regulated, as is the case with sports fields. beach tennis and volleyball also located in the sports area of Las Teresitas beach, or as is also the case in any court in a neighborhood of the city”.
Likewise, the main objective of the Sports Service was to ensure that the playing field remained in the Las Teresitas sports area for as long as possible, without limiting its use and enjoyment to the summer stage.
The Santacrucera councilor indicated that “I want to thank the involvement of different areas of the City Council to make possible this challenge that we had set for ourselves from the Sports Service, for which its installation has been authorized for an initial duration of 4 years, achieving that Its use is extended to the entire calendar year.
The installation has been carried out scrupulously following the preventive and corrective measures to prevent the marine environment from being affected by the new playing field, as stated in the environmental report that was developed during the procedure for the authorization to be granted. by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.
Athletes’ access to the water polo playing field will be restricted to the final part of the beach line, given that the area just above will be restricted to the passage of users in order to protect marine fauna.
The floating field is made up of two competition water polo goals and a rectangle, 15×9 m in size, made up of a line of small swimming-type floating lane ropes. At each of its vertices a ship’s buoy is placed from which an elastic rope will hang that will be attached to a dead weight located on the seabed, inserting 1 meter of steel chain in the middle. This chain is placed to help keep the elastic rope always tense when the tide rises or falls.
With this assembly it will also be ensured that at no time the rope is dragged on the seabed and the possible marine species that inhabit the surroundings are not harmed. Each dead weight will consist of a 30x30x30 cm cube made of marine cement with a galvanized iron ring and weighing approximately 30 kg.
Specifically, the dead weights have been placed on the seabed, after verifying the absence of specimens of any marine species, with special emphasis on the absence of angel sharks. Only the support surface on the seabed will be affected.
To minimize the impact on the environment, the assembly of the field has been supervised and executed by qualified personnel, biologists and professional divers, with sufficient experience in the recognition of marine species. Likewise, at all times you will be in direct contact with the personnel in charge of managing the angelshark conservation that takes place in the area.
Information on the rules of use of this new facility will be made available to all citizens on the City Council’s website, on the social networks of the Sports Service, and of course, physically in the vicinity of the playing field.
