The Rain Came Back. So Did the Fertiliser in Torre del Mar's Tap Water.

Two Fridays ago, when we closed the book on the Costa's drought, we left one thread hanging: a supply network east of Málaga had been climbing steadily since the rains came back, and we would report in full the following week. We said next week. It is the week after. Here is the report.

The network is Torre del Mar-Caleta de Vélez, the coastal strip of Vélez-Málaga about 35 km east of Málaga city, 22,914 people. The short version: the recovery everyone celebrated in April has a cost side nobody audited. The water came back, and it is bringing the fertiliser with it.

Earlier this month we corrected our May water advice and named this network as the one number on the Costa moving the wrong way. Spain's national drinking-water registry (SINAC) holds the full series. Nitrate, in mg/L: 3.7 in July 2022, then 2.6, 1, 1 and 3 through the drought years, then 14 in November 2024 and 39 in November 2025. Confirmed August 2026; no newer reading exists, and the next annual analysis is due around November 2026.

One correction of our own arithmetic first. We printed "up 30.5 in a year" in August; that figure measures against the prior year's average. Reading to reading, it is up 25. The direction needs no arithmetic help.

The legal limit is 50. Sustained readings above 30 make the network a punto crítico — critical point — and the fine print matters: that status obliges the operator to draw up a corrective plan. It does not oblige anyone to send you a letter. Everything about 39 is legal, which is precisely why nobody rang.

Farming on the Vélez river plain puts roughly 400 kg of nitrogen per hectare on the ground each year, most of it between November and April. In dry years there is no rain to carry it down, so it sits in the soil. When the rains return, years of stored nitrogen flush into the groundwater at once. That is not our theory: Spain's geological institute documented this same aquifer doing exactly this after the last great drought, when the 1995/96 rains produced what its hydrologists recorded as a notable jump in nitrate. The first jump this time, to 14, was sampled days after the November 2024 storms that refilled La Viñuela, the reservoir supplying this eastern stretch of the Costa.

There is a second candidate. In September 2023, with the reservoir nearly empty, Vélez-Málaga re-commissioned five drinking-water wells at Vega Mena, on the river margin in Torre del Mar, with health-authority approval. The registry still lists wells among the network's sources; whether they are still in the mix is the question that decides how fast this ends, and it is not answered anywhere public. Nor is there any public statement on the 39 itself. On Monday morning we put both questions to Aqualia, the concession that runs Vélez-Málaga's taps; no reply by the time this went out.

Meanwhile, the aquifer's workload is back. This month the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government, raised the area's subtropical irrigation allocation to 16 hm³, above the standard maximum, after the wettest winter in years. Full irrigation means full fertiliser.

For most readers, on treated mains west of Málaga reading 0 or 1, this is a re-check, not an alarm. The lookup takes about a minute: open your town's page on infoagua (that link shows Vélez-Málaga as the worked example; swap in your own municipality), read down the network list to yours, and note the value and the date.

If your tap is in Torre del Mar or Caleta de Vélez: ask Aqualia in writing for the latest full analysis, at their office in Urb. Viña Málaga, Avda. Moscatel s/n, Edif. Benamocarra, Torre del Mar. At 39, the water stays fine for most adults. If you want the number gone, an under-sink reverse-osmosis tap runs €200 to €450 installed and roughly €50 to €80 a year in filters. Jug filters do nothing for nitrate, and boiling concentrates it.

If you prepare infant formula: Spanish paediatric guidance (the AEP, the national paediatricians' association) puts formula water below 25 mg/L. At 39, use bottled low-mineral water or an RO tap for the bottle, and boil no more than one minute.

If you are in Caleta on the Rivera de Trayamar community network, 2,117 people: the registry holds no nitrate reading for you at all. Put the analysis on the agenda of your comunidad de propietarios — owners' association — in writing.

If your urbanización runs its own borehole anywhere on the Costa: the rains that refilled the reservoirs are the same rains that move well-fed networks. Re-check now, not next drought.

The neighbours, for the record: Nerja's town supply reads 1 (the red dot on the nitrate map there belongs to a 780-person network at 15, and improving), Torrox 2, Algarrobo 10, Rincón de la Victoria 6 and drifting upward. All confirmed August 2026. The full lookup path, the thresholds and what filtration actually works are in our updated tap-water guide.

The drought ended with an official order in April; its underground bill is still being delivered, one annual reading at a time. My read: Torre del Mar's next number, due around November, starts with a 3 again, because the irrigation is back and the aquifer has a 30-year record of holding a grudge. If your water comes off a well anywhere on the Costa, this is the year the once-a-year look earns its minute.

See you on the paseo — A. and the WaypointSur team, well briefed and hydrated.