Beach campaigners are urging the new Mayor of La Linea to tackle her town's sewage troubles which continue to threaten and affect busy coastlines in Gibraltar and Spain.
It follows her having signalled a desire to work positively and closely with Gibraltar for the benefit of both communities.
The ESG, Western Beach users and canoeists say:"While Western Beach sampling data indicates a constant, low level of sewage present, we believe a political statement of intent is still necessary indicating that the manual valve affecting the sewage channels near Western Beach will not be used again and that steps will be taken urgently to permanently seal this pipe."
With this declaration in place campaigners would then consider that swimming in Western Beach would not pose any greater health risk to public health today (with the exception of sudden, heavy rainfall), than using Eastern, Sandy or Catalan bay, all showing similar constant but low levels of sewage in the water; a development, incidentally, which shows a worsening of general bathing water quality over the past year.
PETITION
A positive development in this campaign is that the European Parliament's Petitions Committee has given indications to Sir Graham Watson's office that the Beach Users petition supported by local NGOs has been deemed admissible and will be contacting the Commission for further information. In April, the Commission confirmed that they would enquire about the issue with the relevant authorities.
Sir Graham commented: "I'm pleased that the Petitions Committee has taken this action. It will reinforce the message already sent to the Commission that this is a serious environmental issue that deserves urgent attention. However, it is always better if agreement can be reached locally and I hope we can work with La Linea's new Mayor to come up with a lasting solution to the problem."
Campaigners add: "We hope that solutions will be found at a cross border level and that this can pave the
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