The contaminated stain from the spill in the sea that was forced on Tuesday close to three beaches in the south of Valencia, in the Devesa-Albufera Natural Park, It is no longer visible from the air or from the water, as stated this Wednesday by the government delegate Pilar Bernabé. “But the fact that the stain is not visible does not prevent it from continuing to reach the coast in a more disaggregated way,” he noted from the command post, set up on the beach of Saler, four kilometers from the city center. The Maritime Captaincy has not detected a stain of what appears to be hydrocarbons since late yesterday afternoon. This morning's inspections have not located it either. The origin of the spill is still unknown, although everything points to it being a fuel leak from a ship.
The beaches of l'Arbre del Gos, La Garrofera and El Saler They will remain closed this Wednesday while workers remove the remains of the chapapote (a viscous substance that spreads over the sea and land surface), which stretched for more than two kilometers. The bulk of the spill was deposited on the shores of the beaches this Tuesday and moved from north to south, following the lateral current. On Wednesday afternoon, 35 cubic meters of waste were removed. This morning, there was hardly any trace of the chapapote in the northernmost part of Saler beach. Yesterday, the stains in the same area reached up to two meters wide in the sand.
The Government Delegate has insisted that the pollutant was detected 600 metres from the beaches and that it reached the coast very quickly. A satellite detected it on Tuesday around eight in the morning, although the device did not take action until some time later, because its contents had to be confirmed and “the protocol had to be put into motion”, explains Bernabé, who has thought about the coordination between the different institutions and agents involved. All the ships “that left the area and passed through it have been examined and some have already been ruled out” as a possible source of the spill, he noted. “All lines of investigation remain open, checking and verifying that there is no more contamination”, he added.
“There is no affected fauna, there are no affected birds, except for a plover that has been assisted by the Generalitat technicians and has been recovered. We continue monitoring,” said the Minister of Justice and the Interior, Salomé Pradas. On the beaches of l'Albufera, the freshwater lake separated from the sea by a narrow strip of land, “56 pairs of the endangered snowy plover nested last year,” said Mario Giménez on his X (formerly Twitter) account. BirdLife representative in the Valencian Community. “It does not seem that the spill has had a serious impact,” he said, although the expert recalled that the space remains part of a Natura 2000 network, which could happen tomorrow, if the work continues as before. No comment has been made on bathing in the waters.
Regarding the extraction of the hydrocarbon, the councilor explained around noon that this is done in two phases. In the first case, the most superficial part is removed and they have already had a kilometer of the spill removed. The second phase consists of carrying out tastings to verify that there is no more product in the subsoil. “We are going to wait for the next 24 hours for this work to be completed and we can say that the hydrocarbon is indeed not on our beaches. However, analyses will be carried out on the state of the water quality so that, before the swimmers can return, we can make sure that the quality is optimal and the city council has already indicated that the beach will remain closed. , at least what is used for the bathroom, “he said.
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Port of Valencia
The Ciutat-Port Commission, a platform made up of parties such as Compromís and environmental and social entities of Valencia, has denounced the ecological impact of the hydrocarbon spill, identifying the Port of Valencia as a “real danger” and the expansion of its facilities as “a potential threat” to health and natural heritage. The platform has been important due to the rejection of the project approved by the government to expand the port, which will include a new terminal.
Since this Tuesday, “an enormous layer of hydrocarbons, black in colour and with a penetrating smell of diesel fuel” has been spreading along the coast, “in the heart” of the beaches of the Albufera Natural Park, for a length of several kilometres. and about 20 to 30 metres wide, the platform indicates in a statement. The entity considers that the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office should launch an investigation to determine the causes and those responsible for the spill. The platform points out that port and maritime transit activities are “responsible for the destruction” of the beaches in the south of Valencia and warns of the “real risk” that the expansion of the port entails due to the increase in maritime traffic in the area “with the consequent increase in the risk of accidents, negligence and environmental crimes with irreparable consequences for our health and for the fragile ecosystem of the Albufera Park.”
The Valencia Port Authority (APV) has assured since Tuesday that the hydrocarbon leak affecting three beaches in the south of Valencia did not come from any ship in the port's anchorage area, which is in front of those beaches.
