The abandoned smokestacks: teeming with life in the waters off the Besos estuary

The abandoned smokestacks at Central tèrmica de Sant Adrià de Besòs tower over a Spanish coastal town, remnants of industrial power. But on closer inspection, these structures in the waters off the estuary provide a home to over 500 species of marine life. These include sessile organisms like brown and calcareous algae, sponges, hydroids, briozoans, polychaetes, and anemones. Mobile fauna includes starfish, sea urchins, various crustaceans, molluscs, mussels, cuttlefish, and a wide variety of fish species like scorpionfish, rock fish, wrasse, gobies, and parrotfish.

The head of the tubs of refrigeration, made of bloc de formigó, is proposed to be left as an island for marine birds such as the shining gull and the shaggy-backed gull. Since 2017, the management of this area has been a collaboration between Endesa, the city councils of Badalona and Sant Adrià, and the Besòs Consortium, which aims to conserve the seabed, improve biodiversity, and promote environmental education.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons