According to the Spanish newspaper SUR, engineers and technicians working for several of the companies preparing bids for the proposed sewage plant have expressed doubts that the project can be carried out for the agreed budget amount due to the topography of the chosen location, Fuente del Baden.
Bidding for the works closes on May 21st and the budget for the project has been set at €40.6 million. However, the engineers apparently believe that the final cost will have to be in the region of €60 million to €80 million and that the successful bidder will automatically ask for a budget increase once the contract has been awarded, a common practice.
The major problem is that the chosen site, in Fuente del Baden, lies well above most of the town. Only parts of Capistrano and Maro are above the proposed site and can therefore gravity can do its work. For the rest, extremely powerful pumps, and lots of them, will be needed.
The wisdom of choosing high ground rather than a low-lying site, such as at the end of El Playazo beach, is apparently, and quite rightly being questioned. Perhaps the obsession with a marina in that area had an influence, who knows.
If the reports are true and the chosen site is unsuitable, possibly leading to delays due to funding problems or having to implement a plant with lower (or inadequate) specifications, then it verges on the ridiculous. The powers-that-be have had nearly forty years to prepare and select a technically and environmentally suitable site.
Work on the sewage plant is supposed to start in 2013 and be completed in 2015. Let us just hope that someone, somewhere knows what they are doing.
Roger says:
Unbelievable. Something so obvious should have been considered 40 years ago!
Jon says:
Maybe they should consider using the town hall, no that’s already full!
Nigel says:
Speaking last night to a young Irish couple who had ended their first visit to Nerja with their two year old son. They said that they had gone for a swim in the sea and asked us if what they saw floating there wasn’t what they thought it was.
We told the truth.
They won’t be back.
Tony Slade says:
One had only to witness the effluence in the sea last week to see how urgent the task is of getting proper sewerage treatment system installed.
I wonder how many people remember Salou in northern Spain several years ago when publicity was given to the open sewerage. People stopped going there but somehow, miraculously, money was suddenly found to cure the problem and restore visitors’ confidence.
Perhaps someone has the money to pay for a big publicity campaign showing how bad things are here and thus shame the mayor and council into doing something. Why is Nerja the only town without a proper treatment plant?
Jon says:
We have sat, on more than one occasion, in Cochranes terrace bar and watch a stream of effluent about 200 metres from Playa El Salon. Thee would seem to be a break in the pipe that close to shore.
We haven’t been in the sea for about six years and use the pool instead.