Drinking water from the Segura!

These three young ladies chose the river Segura as a backdrop for their photograph taken at Rojales during the early sixties.

Right up to the seventies, the river was a popular place to go for a day out. People strolled by it, fished in it, went boating on it, swam in it and even drank the water from the river.

It is hard to imagine anyone doing any of those things today because for the most part, the river resembles a sewer.

All that might change thanks to work by the Hydrographic Confederation of the Segura (CHS).

For example, they have already begun cleaning a 2,000 metre section of the river through Rojales at a cost of 1.5m Euros. They are installing a plant to provide oxygen for the water to prevent periods of stagnation when he river is low.

They are also extracting mud from the river bed and clearing the banks. Twenty thousand tons of mud have already been removed. By October they aim to have taken away between 20 and 25 million cubic metres of the stuff.

The hope is that in the future the river could become a tourist attraction again with a constant flow even in periods of drought.

I'll have to find some attractive young ladies to picure when the work is finished!