On Tuesday 26th July at 2.30pm, Javea Town Hall announced that swimming would be prohibited in the sea until further notice.
“The Arenal beach is closed to bathers due to the detection of a microbiological spillage.” The latest analysis carried out on Monday by the Bath Water Quality Control Program detected contamination of faecal origin and therefore advised that bathing be banned forthwith.
Instructions were given to both the Local Police, Surveillance and Rescue personnel to make the closure effective. The red flag was subsequently hoisted and was announced via loudspeaker.
The Water Quality Control Service took samples throughout the morning to conduct a second analysis and check whether the spill, detected on Monday, was still present. As soon as analyses confirm that it is safe to swim again, the beach will reopened
The Ministry of Agriculture and Ecological Transition have told the Town Hall that, in the wake of the breakage of the marine emission, the Arenal beach is the most watched beach in the Valencian Community and that in more than 80 analyses that have been made during the breakdown, is the first time that it has detected elevated problems.
The bad news made headlines everywhere, including Spanish Television.
The beach was subsequently re-opened on 28th July, following this statement:-
The General Directorate of Water confirms that the Arenal beach waters are now safe to swim in again. The regional authority has described the episode as “short-lived”, and certifies that their analytics yesterday -27th of July – confirm that any trace of landfill has disappeared and the water is back suitable for swimming.
Once authorisation has been received, the City Council has immediately given instructions to reopen the beach to bathers. The lifeguards have raised the green flag again and the beach rhythm is slowly returning to normality.
From the Council they regret the inconvenience caused to swimmers and users of the Arenal in these two days that the beach has been closed, as well as the negative impact on the tourist image of Javea and reserves the right to take action and reserves the right to take any action needed to shed some light on what happened.
