Nearly three months have passed since the temporary closure of El Reducto beach, the main one in the capital of Lanzarote, was decreed due to fecal contamination of its waters. This natural spot, which is also one of Arrecife's biggest tourist attractions, has reached a record and has become the beach in Lanzarote that has been closed for swimming for the longest period due to the presence of bacteria.
The Lanzarote Water Consortium and the company responsible for managing the island's integral water cycle, Canal Gestión, have been working with the Arrecife City Council to pinpoint the source of this environmental contamination. For the moment, the Public Health order is not to reopen the beach until the point of contamination is located and it is analyzed where the sea is being polluted from.
In statements to *La Voz*, the Water Counselor of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Domingo Cejas, has announced that they have located what appears to be the **source of contamination of El Reducto**. Cejas explained that it is **an old collector**, more than 40 years old, where the wastewater from several homes on Greco, Valencia, and part of Valls de la Torre streets is collected
The hypothesis being considered by the Consortium is that this old collector was broken during the pedestrianization works on this beach, and that the liquid part of this waste has been leaking into the sea ever since. "It broke and was left broken," stated the councilor, who attributes this breakage to the lack of knowledge that this collector was still in operation in the area.
Currently, the **Water Consortium** is awaiting budget approval to **urgently award** the repair of this network. The objective is to connect the wastewater from these three streets to the new network, which is about twelve years old, and thus try to stop the leaks. For the moment, a daily cleaning is being carried out in this old collector to prevent further leaks.Initially, the Water Consortium considered that the source might be in the Punta del Camello area, next to the Lanzarote Cabildo esplanade, where there are two unauthorized outlets, managed by Canal Gestión and the responsibility of the Consortium, which discharge wastewater into the sea when the network is saturated. After ruling out that the contamination was coming from this point, the possibility was raised that the contamination was occurring from a collector on Avenida Fred Olsen. To confirm this theory, they dug trenches in the sand at El Reducto to try to locate contaminated water. Those excavations also yielded no resultsAccording to the Consortium's account, starting this Tuesday, it will send the technical report that supports this action to the Arrecife City Council and will inform Public Health of the discovery of this outbreak.