The start of the stabilization works on the beach in the center of Premià de Mar, where several breakwaters will be built and a contribution of 350,000 m3 of sand will be made, has revived the debate on the consolidation of the Maresme coastline. For the entities grouped in the Preserve el Litoral platform, it would be enough for the State to force the ports to transfer the sand that accumulates in the breakwaters through bypass operations, as contemplated in most concession agreements.
El Maresme has five marinas –Arenys de Mar, Port Balís, Mataró, Premià de Mar and El Masnou– in a 50-kilometre strip. These infrastructures alter marine currents and "disfigure the landscape morphologies", the activists point out in the manifesto for a Pact for the Maresme Coast. In the opinion of the regional entities, the ports have been systematically failing to comply with their obligations to transfer the sand that accumulates in the western breakwaters to the areas where the beaches suffer greater degradation. Hence, the administrations are committed to regeneration projects with dredgers and breakwaters to stabilize the most affected beaches.
This is the case of Premià de Mar, where the Ministry for the Ecological Transition has acted to stabilize the beach in a stretch of 860 meters. The project plans to extend the current breakwater in front of the railway station by about 130 meters and finish it in the shape of an inverted L towards Barcelona. The structure will continue with another 135 meters submerged perpendicular to the beach. A second 65-meter breakwater parallel to the beach in the form of a semi-submerged island will be located 75 meters from the coast, which will stabilize the 350,000 m3 of sand that will be spilled. With this, they hope to achieve a homogeneous beach 65 meters wide.
But the environmental entities demand that the Ministry paralyze the actions foreseen in the Technical Report on the Maresme action strategy and that it urge the ports to comply with the transfer of sand, which is not taken into account in any project, and "force them to comply with the commitments” to carry out sand bypass.
They ensure that the port of Badalona should transfer 130.00 m3 of sand per year through a bypass, an operation "that is not carried out". In the port of Masnou they usually regenerate the beaches to the south of the coast because "their mouth fills up" and for this they have a dredger that transfers the sand that blocks the access. In Premià de Mar, according to the platform, the port would be obliged to transfer 88,000 m3 through a bypass, some tubes located in the northern area that would pump the sand beyond the port area to the south of the facility.
Although the port of Arenys de Mar, built in 1961, has not compromised any transfer, environmentalists demand that the protocols and agreements be reviewed so that it also allows the regeneration of the southernmost beaches of the port facility.
"The coastline cannot be as rigid as projected," says Sergi Galanó, spokesman for Preservem el Litoral, and regrets that the Ministry contradicts its own policies when it does not force ports to comply with their obligations and on the other hand invests millions in contributions of sand and groynes.
