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A Spanish official apologized Tuesday after ordering beaches in a small coastal town be sprayed with a diluted bleach solution the day before children were allowed to stroll outdoors for the first time in six weeks under lockdown measures meant to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Zahara de los Atunes, a coastal village in the province of Cádiz and the autonomous region of Andalusia, used tractors to spray about 1.2 square miles of beach with bleach solution on Saturday, the BBC reported.
On Sunday, children under 14 were permitted to go outside for one hour after most had been cooped up in their homes since mid-March.
Admitting spraying the bleach was the “wrong move,” local municipal official Agustín Conejo said it was a misguided attempt to protect children from infection.
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Zahara de los Atunes, a holiday resort near Spain's Atlantic Ocean coastline. (Photo by Mehner/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
“I recognize it was an error,” he told Spanish broadcaster Canal Sur, according to The Guardian. “But it was done with the best of intentions.”
Environmentalists argued the bleach caused “brutal damage” to the local ecosystem. María Dolores Iglesias Benítez, the leader of a volunteer environmental group in the Cadiz region, said driving the tractors over the sand dunes destroyed protected breeding and nesting places for migratory birds.
"Bleach is used as a very powerful disinfectant, it is logical that it be used to disinfect streets and asphalt, but here the damage has been brutal," Iglesias told Spanish media. “Taking into account that the virus lives in people, not on the beach, it is crazy.”
The incident also drew attention from Greenpeace Spain, which referenced the recent controversy over President Trump sarcastically suggesting to ingest bleach to treat COVID-19 at a White House press briefing.
Families walk in the sunshine along a boulevard in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, April 26, 2020, as the lockdown to combat the spread of coronavirus continues. On Sunday, children under 14 years old will be allowed to take walks with a parent for up to one hour and within one kilometer from home, ending six weeks of complete seclusion. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
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“Fumigating beaches in the middle of the breeding season for birds or the development of the invertebrate network that will support coastal fishing and destroy the tourist value of the coastline is not one of Trump's ideas,” Greenpeace Spain tweeted. “It is happening in Zahara de los Atunes.”
The regional government in Andalusia is weighing whether to fine the local municipality, El Pais newspaper reported.
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