MALAGA has reopened the final four of six beaches shut for swimming since last week after new water quality tests confirmed the sea is safe again.
The beaches reopened are the ones that run along the city’s western coastline between the airport and the port, including Guadalmar, Sacaba, Misericordia and San Andres.
They reopened on Wednesday afternoon after analysis by Emasa, the city’s municipal water company, found E. coli levels back within the safe limit.
The Junta’s regional health authority authorised the reopening once it received the results, the town hall said.
Campo de Golf-San Julian and El Palo, the other two beaches on the closure list, had already reopened on Tuesday.
All six beaches were closed after a storm in the early hours of Saturday, August 15, forced Malaga’s sewage network to release overflow into the sea rather than risk flooding inland.
The town hall said these overflows happen in almost every coastal town in Spain, because the pipes that run along the coast carry both rainwater and sewage together.
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A short, intense downpour can force them to release straight into the sea rather than let the whole system back up and flood inland.
Saturday’s storm dropped 14mm in a single hour, according to the town hall.
Malaga is working to separate its rainwater and sewage pipes into distinct networks, aiming to get 70% of the city’s system split under Emasa’s 2024-2029 infrastructure plan.
Work is already under way in several districts, including Palma-Palmilla, La Malagueta and Pedregalejo Alto.
A storm tank is also due to go to tender in the coming months on the historic Carreteria collector, which carries wastewater from the old town down to the port, so overflow can be stored instead of released straight into the sea.
The reopening comes in the middle of Malaga’s Feria, the city’s biggest annual festival, which runs until August 22 and draws huge numbers of visitors to the coast.
But until the storm tank and the wider pipe-separation work are finished, another downpour as heavy as Saturday’s could shut the same beaches again.
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