Like it more or less, the truth is that the Tenerife beaches not only do they represent a fundamental attraction to attract visitors and thus ensure that the tourism sector continues to be the tourism engine of the Island, but they are also essential for residents to enjoy them in their leisure time, not to mention those who find in them an ideal setting to carry out healthy activities that serve as complementary therapy to their physical or mental problems.
For this reason, it is relevant that during the recently completed first weekend of September, a month that is particularly suitable for enjoying the island’s coastline, the problems detected on beaches located in municipal districts that are so strategic for the southeast of Tenerife, such as Candelaria and Granadilla, have coincided. where yesterday the indications of the authorities remained active that, in the best of cases, discouraged bathing in them when they did not prohibit it directly, waiting for the scope of the problems detected to be assessed again today, and ranging from the return of the so-called microalgaewhich were so sadly famous five years ago in the Canary Islands, to the effects caused by runoff that carried debris to the coast as a result of the rains caused by a tropical wave that reached the Archipelago in previous days.
Candlemas
Thus, sources from the City Council of Candelaria confirmed last night to this newspaper that their announcement from last Friday where “bathing on the beaches of Punta Larga and Los Guanches was discouraged after detecting the presence of microalgae in the water” remains in force until today it is decided about. Already that day, this consistory warned that from its Health area “a follow-up of the situation” would be carried out and that “the evolution of these two enclaves” will be communicated through official channels, affected by what is actually a bloom. ) of cyanobacteria, a natural phenomenon that takes place under certain circumstances that favor the multiplication and accumulation of these planktonic organisms in periods that can last just hours, but also days.
This is not something unknown to canaries. Although specialists knew these natural phenomena well beforehand, it was in the summer of 2017 when the island population in general was surprised by an unusual multiplication of these blooms that, although they do not affect health in an extreme way except in exceptional cases, nothing good generates for the same bathing where they are produced. Not to mention the damage they can cause among animals, oblivious to the danger they imply.
For now, there is no evidence, not even remotely, that what happened in that summer five years ago, when these blooms were repeated in a large part of Tenerife but also in areas of other islands, can be repeated, but the fact that the increase in the temperature of the ocean waters and, above all, the possibility that these cyanobacteria benefit from the waste without prior treatment that has been dumped into the sea in these parts for decades (it seems that they are beginning to put an end to them) does not help, precisely, to not worry about this, either for this year or for years to come.
Passion fruit
As for what happened further south, it should be remembered that it was also last Friday when the Granadilla City Council went further and proceeded to prohibit bathing in areas such as Playa Grande de El Médano, as well as in La Tejita and El Chinchorro, “due to the runoff of rainwater that occurred yesterday [el pasado jueves para el lector]. Then, the chasnero consistory explained that it had made such a decision “as a precaution and in order to guarantee adequate levels of security for the population, pending the results of the relevant counter-analyses”, a decision that was still in force yesterday. In other words, if it rains a lot, the water continues to flow uncontrollably through the south of Tenerife.
The Canary Islands now have two boats prepared to collect garbage
It was in the summer five years ago, and although it was not strange for any Canary to see what was always identified as an accumulation of algae in bathing areas, what happened in 2017 was out of the ordinary. Then, the so-called microalgae (actually extraordinary blooms of cyanobacteria) occupied, day in and day out, numerous areas of the coast of the Islands, especially in Tenerife. The coincidence of multiple causes such as a higher temperature of the waters, the calm in them and, according to many experts, the food provided by the waste that is dumped into the sea without prior treatment, gave rise to a sovereign anger of the citizens who the regional government at the time did not respond quickly, thus providing formidable ammunition to the opposition.
Upon returning from vacation, the team chaired in those years by Fernando Clavijo (Canarian Coalition) finally understood that the neighborhood anger was from the time and was due to a problem that could be repeated, reacting with the acquisition of two ships with exclusive characteristics as they were equipped with a system for collecting microalgae, plastics and microplastics patented by Ocean Cleaner, a Spanish company that was paid 1.2 million euros for it. The two ships, called Mar Canario and La Graciosa, have been in service since then, sources from the Canary Islands Government confirmed yesterday.
