About twenty geese take advantage of the fact that the Pisuerga River passes through Valladolid to settle on the river beach of Las Moreras. The birds, with biblical bad temper, watch with malicious eyes to ensure that no one gets too close. Some towels are scattered on the sandy beach, warmed by a sun that anticipates the summer season. There are retirees preparing to look tan in Benidorm; crushed gentlemen happily glued to the radio and some young women spending the morning. Nobody splashes. In front of the channel, two plaques indicating the prohibition of bathing according to the health criteria of the Junta de Castilla y León. Despite this, some Valladolid residents tend to soak when the mercury melts. The indices have been denying bathing for five years, but now the City Council, with PP and Vox, is trying to move the measurement points to obtain favorable results and allow free bathing. Meanwhile, the head of the Environmental Health service of the Board, Isabel García, has ceased at her own request after the controversy.
Two retired friends, who introduce themselves only as Maribel and Ana, lie down on their towels and look up when the trance is interrupted. “This water even seems to smell, I like transparent rivers and I have never even put my feet in here,” Maribel argues in front of the greenish patina: “You just have to see the little color!” The aroma of sunscreen transports you to sea sands where both prefer to dive. That is why they are surprised when year after year a certain Goyo happily enters this river beach: “he always says that he has bathed all his life and has not died.” “He even takes water with his mouth and spits it out!” adds Ana, scandalized. On the waters, Juan simply moves in a canoe, without a last name, who shouts out his opinion: “I only get wet when I fall!”
The indices have been negative since 2018 according to the results of a measurement point close to the shore. The regional Minister of Health, Alejandro Fernández, admitted the corporation’s desire to move that point. Now there is where to locate it: “The City Council made a proposal for an intake that was not opportune because it did not comply with the fact that it was a bathing area or that the circumstances of the river did not change the circumstances of the water.” The beach has several parts: one near a waterfall, where the waters flow more and accumulate less waste, and another more peaceful, next to the sand, prone to harboring more pollution or geese fecal remains. “In the middle of the river” is also not valid because “a false positive” could occur. The PSOE, in the opposition after eight years of leadership together with Valladolid Toma La Palabra, has charged against the Junta and the Consistory for what it considers political tactics, both from PP and Vox.
The former mayor and now Minister of Transportation, Óscar Puente, positioned himself like this: “They deprived the citizens of Valladolid of a bathroom out of pure sectarianism. He changed the sign of the municipal government and changed the sampling point to give way to the beach. They are from the PP in its purest form.” His successor, Jesús Julio Carnero (PP), has denied “strange issues” and has highlighted that his predecessors complained, but did not demand the movement: “What we have done is work and if now they have said that it is suitable, for now , well then”.
Councilor Fernández has insisted that “the law authorizes it to be done” and recalled that “other municipal teams” could have also done it. Socialist sources acknowledge that they have been a fool because on several occasions they alluded to the Board’s refusal, but never formally requested the change. The Board refers its criteria to national regulations, but spokespersons for Ecologistas en Acción in Valladolid point out the high levels of Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococcus bacteria that the legislation of Castilla y León allows: the values far exceed those accepted in the Community from Madrid or in Castilla-La Mancha. The explanatory statement itself in the regional order affects this national legal vacuum, since no specific limits are set.
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The tide on the health of the Pisuerga has taken the head of the Environmental Health service, Isabel García, dismissed at her own request. The goodbye of this official dependent on the General Directorate of Public Health, directed by Sonia Tamames, has been justified as a matter of “trust.” Spokespersons for the Ministry of Health responded: “Tamames is not going to give any interviews,” when requested by EL PAÍS. The senior official did speak to El Norte de Castilla, where she alluded to the change in the sampling location towards one less susceptible to pollution: “It reflects much better where people could bathe in summer if a positive history is generated.” “We are going to track that point and, if we are able to guarantee that the water is suitable for bathing, it will be authorized, which the City Council has to request because a resolution calling for bathing to be banned is still being weighed,” indicated Tamames.
The imminent arrival of summer collides with the legal deadlines to collect various samples, analyze them and make decisions, they question in Ecologistas en Acción; “Article 5.1 of the regional regulation states that before March 20, each year the competent General Directorate will prepare the census of bathing water areas. How does the Board plan to incorporate the Las Moreras bathing area into the census at this point and allow bathing if this must be done before March 20?
The technical debate agitates the parties while at the foot of the water Adrián Ferreduela and Gabriel Mateo, fishermen aged 20 and 18, soak worms with the hope of fooling a goby. The first does not bathe — “I don’t get in here!” — but the second, despite health recommendations, does cool off with his colleagues in the summer. Marcos Gómez, 58 years old and with a hearing aid, has been going to the river beach since he was 10 and soaking on hot days. “The geese leave him in shit,” he exclaims. The American university students Eoifi Nishe, from New York, and Irelyn, from Montana, are amazed when I tell them that many people go into the Pisuerga, because they were content to give a little color to the epidermis, which at the moment is rather pinkish. The idea is seductive both because of the heat and because of the comparisons, Nishe confesses: “I’m sure I’ve bathed in worse waters.” Nearby, four white geese and five yellow geese spend the morning next to a drifting carton of cheap wine.
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