The storm caused by Storm Ciarán engulfed the sand on Nova Mar Bella beach in Barcelona in early November and blew up the wall of the promenade. Once the danger has passed, the coast of the Catalan capital will be in a critical situation and no one knows exactly when it will be repaired and, above all, whether sand can be provided in a timely manner. The last contribution of the Ministry (then Environment) in Barcelona was in 2010, when 791,138 cubic meters of sand were dumped. Today, 13 years later, 129,300 square meters of space have disappeared, as the beach director of the Barcelona Ciclo del Agua (BCASA), Patricia Giménez, told EL PAÍS. The missing sand corresponds to four of the city’s nine beaches. The sea has swallowed more sand than the current surface of the beaches of Levante, Nova Mar Bella, Mar Bella and Sant Miquel. The problem is getting worse and new additions of sand are not expected until 2025 at the earliest.
The lack of sand on the beaches is not just a problem for the Catalan capital. On November 7, the mayor of the PP in Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, sent a letter to the Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, in which he addressed the “emergency situation” on the city’s sandy beaches.
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Albiol’s complaint is not the only complaint from mayors of coastal communities. On April 27, a riot broke out in Gavà by the metropolitan socialist councilors to criticize the Generalitat’s climate change director, Mireia Boya, after she stated in an interview that she was not in favor of providing sand to the beaches. Boya considered these donations a “waste of money” and the socialist mayors as a group accused the former CUP parliamentarian of trying to make the beaches disappear. The protest was directed against Boya, but with the knowledge that the Generalitat has no powers to pay costs and the contributions are always a bilateral commitment that the city councilors sign with the government through the ministry in charge of the matter. Among the protesting socialist city councilors was deputy mayor Laia Bonet, who is now responsible for ecological change in the Barcelona city council and does not believe the beaches of the Catalan capital are lost.
A spokesman for the Barcelona City Council told EL PAÍS this week that “the municipality continues to maintain the demand for sand for the city’s beaches.” The request has been approved and is being processed.” The Ministry of Ecological Transition has not responded to this newspaper, when this next contribution will be made, although close sources assure that the tender will not take place until 2025.
Destruction on the Barcelona promenade, near Mar Bella beach, on November 5th after a storm and rough seas. MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI
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BCASA measures the sand on the Catalan capital’s nine beaches twice a year. Since the replacement in 2010, 50,000 cubic meters per year were lost in the first few years. And from 2015 to today, almost 17,000 cubic meters annually.
“In recent weeks, the storms Aline, Bernard, Ciarán and Domingos have not taken a break and have been hit mainly by the sand of the Nova Mar Bella beach. The wall could not cope with the waves and eventually collapsed,” admits Beaches director Patricia Giménez. Since the city council is unable to provide sand, the local administration’s only option is to transfer what little is left from one place to another. “The Port Olímpic acts as an obstacle and in the estuary there is an accumulation of sand that we mine and use for Barceloneta and hardly anything else,” admits Giménez.
To protect them, a stabilization program for beaches and submerged breakwaters and dikes was designed in 2008. In 2021, the final phase of this project was carried out, namely the extension of the breakwater on Sant Sebastià beach. “The beach has been holding up ever since, but we need a portion of sand,” admits the beach director. The problem is that not all beaches have a dam or protection from storms and BCASA also knows that the beach in Mar Bella is broken and due to this break a large part of the sand is lost.
Eloi Badia, who was councilor for ecological transition during Ada Colau’s last term, had agreed with the ministry to provide sand that in reality came from pumping several meters off the coast of the Catalan capital. This contribution was supposed to take place in 2024, but sources familiar with these agreements know that the sand will not arrive because no company took part in this tender and it had to be called again. Now the project has been commissioned – informational only – to see how, how much and where the missing sand will be distributed. In addition, the City Council also intends to examine the current dikes and the possibility of installing protective measures on the beaches of Levante and Nova Mar Bella. Once the project is completed, the relevant work will still need to be put out to tender, which is why several experts warn that this work will not begin until 2025 at the earliest. Meanwhile, every sea storm causes centimeters and centimeters of sand to disappear from Barcelona’s coast.
A child plays on the beach of Nova Mar Bella this Sunday, in an area that suffered extensive damage after a storm of wind and rough seas on November 5th. Gianluca Battista
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