A direct consequence of the bad weather of the last few days: 13 beaches are closed to swimming in the Alpes-Maritimes.
Safety markers are installed directly at the water’s edge to discourage people from going there.
The cause: bacteriological contamination.
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Holiday hassles
Cold shower at the sight of the red flag and the tape. “When you come here, the goal is to swim peacefully, because the water is good… But hey, that’s how it is, you have to deal with it.”reacts, on TF1’s microphone, in the report in Antibes of the 1pm news, broadcast this Friday, September 6, to be found in the video at the top of this article, a retiree who has just arrived, with her husband, from Saint-Étienne, in the hope of taking a dip. After the violent storms that swept the Côte d’Azur on the night of September 4 to 5, during which the Alpes-Maritimes were placed on orange alert, the municipality of Antibes Juan-les-Pins announced, Thursday, September 5, the closure of 13 beaches to swimming.
In detail, these bad weather events caused “hydraulic overload of the networks” from the local sewage treatment plant, then “preventive load shedding” wastewater into the sea to prevent flooding. To find out the extent of the contamination, Séverine Gaudu, responsible for the quality of bathing water in the municipality, is carrying out “three samples per day” using the small bottle that she shows to our camera. The idea is to know precisely, after laboratory analysis, the rate of the fecal bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli), dangerous beyond the threshold of 100 units.
The beaches affected by these bans are: Fontonne Est, Fontonne Ouest, Fort Carré, Gravette, Ponteil, Salis, Garoupe Est, Garoupe Ouest, Cap d’Antibes, Les Ondes, Promenade du Soleil, Grande plage de Juan-les-Pins and Pont Dulys. “People are understanding. They know that after heavy rains, it’s a bit risky. You can catch some bugs just by swimming. We’ve just had two days of rain, now it’s sunny, so we’re not going to complain.”relativizes, with the smile of a regular, Guillaume Gian Antonio, manager for twenty years of a snack bar on the beach of Salis, in Antibes. The authorities expect a return to normal from Saturday, September 7 in the morning, in the best case scenario.
