A deserted blue flag beach
El Reducto beach is deserted. It holds one of only three Blue Flags left on the island, is in the heart of Arrecife, Lanzarote’s capital, and sits next to the city’s main hotel complexes, yet there is not a soul on this stretch of coast. Since 14 October, with some interruptions, the red flag has flown over this iconic island beach. Occasionally, you might see someone walking on the sand or a lifeguard asking a couple of confused tourists to get out of the water, as bathing has been advised against at this spot for almost two months due to sewage discharges. For the moment, the origin point of the incidents is unknown, and the beach will not reopen until it is found.
A cycle of closure and contamination
The first closure announcement came on 14 October. Arrecife Town Hall’s Beach Department made the decision “as a precaution”, after the Local Police confirmed new discharges resembling sewage in an area known as Punta del Camello, where a submarine outfall—the pipes meant to carry supposedly treated wastewater out to sea—is located. Tests carried out that day by Lanzarote’s Public Health department confirmed the contamination episode by testing positive for the E.coli bacteria, common in the human intestine.
On 16 October at 9:30 am, the Town Hall announced the beach’s reopening, after results from the Health Inspection Service determined the water quality at El Reducto was optimal for bathing. That same afternoon, the Cabildo’s (island council) Emergency Consortium reported that the red flag had been hoisted again due to poor water quality. Two weeks later, on 31 October, Arrecife reopened the beach for bathing, backed by positive reports from Health authorities. However, the green flag lasted barely four days, and on 4 November it was replaced by the red flag, which remains today.
The search for responsibility and a solution
On that day, Public Health advised “prohibiting bathing at El Reducto beach until the responsible entity determines the causes behind these faecal contamination episodes and guarantees that the corresponding corrective measures have been taken.” The responsible entities Public Health refers to are the company Canal Gestión and the Lanzarote Insular Water Consortium. The former is the company in charge of the island’s integrated water cycle since 2013, when the former island president and current senator Pedro San Ginés (CC) awarded it the service for €106 million. Canal Gestión—a subsidiary of Madrid’s Canal Isabel II—is the managing entity for the overflow channel and the Wastewater Pumping Station (EBAR) located at Punta del Camello, as recorded in the Canary Islands Government’s discharge register. The Lanzarote Insular Water Consortium is made up of the Cabildo and the seven town councils and owns the facilities.
Sources from Canal Gestión have told this newspaper that the origin of the problem has not yet been found and referred further inquiries to the Insular Water Consortium. For its part, the Cabildo has referred the matter to Canal Gestión, as it is a problem with the sewage network and therefore under its remit. Meanwhile, the beach remains closed with no solution in sight.
Administrative blame and technical challenges
Arrecife Town Hall has responded that discharges have been recorded in the area for many years, but they assert that tests from recent months have concluded that El Reducto’s waters are indeed fit for bathing. “It’s not that they are still contaminated, but when Health decreed the closure, they warned that authorisation would not be given until the incidents are resolved,” explain sources from the municipal corporation.
The authorities now face the challenge of finding the exact point where the wastewater seepage is occurring. The Consortium, in an official statement issued to Arrecife Town Hall and published by the council in October, stated it had confirmed leaks in its system in the area and blockages in the network leading to the Punta del Camello overflow channel. The Cabildo’s Water Councillor, Domingo Cejas, has explained in local media that they have a robot to examine the interior of an obsolete sewage network and thus detect possible leaks. A 20-metre trench has also been dug at El Reducto to carry out surveys and locate the leak. The Cabildo has confirmed that Canal Gestión has subcontracted the company Canaragua to carry out this survey work.
A wider problem of unauthorised discharges
Regarding whether the Environment department has assessed the environmental impact of the discharges on this stretch of Arrecife’s coast, the Town Hall indicates that the E.coli bacteria only affects the human body, potentially causing skin rashes or eye irritation. “There is no other type of contamination,” they add.
Neither of the two discharge points located in the contamination zone are authorised, as recorded in the register of land-to-sea discharges updated by the Canary Islands Government this year. The report published by the Ministry for Ecological Transition concludes that of the 36 discharge points counted in Lanzarote, only eight are authorised. The rest are either unauthorised (50%) or pending approval (28%). Specifically, most discharge points on the coast of Arrecife and San Bartolomé lack authorisation. The percentage of regulated discharge points (22%) has remained frozen since 2021, when illegal ones stood at 57% and those pending approval had fallen to 22%.
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