With the summer upon us and people taking advantage of warmer weather to take to the beaches, last week’s report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the quality of Irish bathing waters was nothing if not timely. Its findings are also a cause for concern. Although the vast majority of the 131 beaches and lakeshores designated under the EU’s Bathing Waters Directive passed muster on water quality, nine of them failed to meet the minimum standards last year, compared to just four in 2007. All nine were found to have excess levels of faecal coliforms in the water, due to failures in sewage treatment. The fact that four of these – Balbriggan, Loughshinny, Malahide and Portrane – are in the heavily populated Dublin area must be seen as a blow to recreational amenities in the capital.
Clifden, Co Galway, and Ardmore, Co Waterford – both long-established tourist resorts – were among the other bathing places contaminated by sewage pollution. In the case of Ardmore, the problem has persisted for years; indeed, Waterford County Council had to place a public notice at the entrance to its beach in June 2000 saying “please do not paddle or bathe in the waters of the stream below until further notice – by order of the South Eastern Health Board”. It did not explain why, but everyone locally knew that raw sewage was being discharged into this stream on the ebb tide, in the crudest possible way to get rid of it.
No local authority in Ireland should be blasé about keeping their bathing waters clean. Twenty years ago, the Spanish resort of Salou lost 70 per cent of its bookings due to fears of a typhoid outbreak from contaminated water. Other health risks from the failure to treat sewage adequately include gastro-intestinal infection, leptospirosis and even cholera in extreme cases. None of these can be taken lightly. Salou had to work very hard to deal with the problem and its bathing water is now blue and, most importantly, clean.
One of the aggravating factors in Ireland last year was the summer’s unseasonal heavy rain, which resulted in overflowing drains and excess run-off from agricultural land. But the underlying cause, according to the EPA, was inadequate or malfunctioning sewerage infrastructure. Fingal County Council has already upgraded its sewage treatment plant in Balbriggan, and this should make a difference. The Department of the Environment’s water services programme, under which €500 million will be spent this year, will hopefully halt sewage pollution in other popular bathing places.