Swimmers Not Browned Off As Beaches Clean Up

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday December 18, 2008

Ben Cubby Environment Reporter

SYDNEY'S beaches are as clean as they have been in a century, despite a dip in water quality in some popular swimming spots this year, according to the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change.

Bondi, Clovelly, Maroubra and Palm Beach were among the city's cleanest, along with most of the northern beaches. Malabar remains the most polluted and Coogee slid below the recommended safe levels for the presence of enterococci, a bacterium which can pose serious health risks.

The apparent contradiction between generally cleaner water but a drop in the number of beaches that passed water quality tests is explained by this year's high rainfall.

Record rain has driven up the number of pathogens in the water in some places, because more stormwater has been flowing into creeks and ocean outfalls. But compared to other unusually rainy years, water quality is going swimmingly, according to the annual State Of The Beaches report.

It found that 23 ocean beach sites complied with water quality guidelines all of the time and all but four met the basic criteria of tests for enterococci and faecal coliform pathogens 80 per cent of the time.

The four dirtiest swimming spots were Malabar Beach, Boat Harbour, Narrabeen Lagoon and Coogee, which fell just short of relatively strict guidelines. Health risks were regarded as minimal, the department said.

Inside Sydney Harbour and its surrounding rivers, only 10 of the 59 test sites met water quality guidelines all the time, down from 43 last year, but the change was wholly because of more run-off from higher rainfall in urban areas, the department said.

The number of swimming spots on beaches and inside Sydney Harbour that comply with recreational swimming guidelines is now 60 per cent, compared with 20 per cent a decade ago, the NSW Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, Carmel Tebbutt, said.

The Government still urges people to avoid swimming in ocean beaches for a day after heavy rain.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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