Here’s some great news for the swimmers amongst you. The City of Cape Town is about to launch a first-of-its-kind initiative to clean up the water running into three popular bathing areas. The project aims to improve the quality of storm water at two outlet sites in Three Anchor Bay and another at Rocklands, between Sea Point and Mouille Point.

These three sites have been selected for the year-long pilot project, which involves what’s known as end-of-pipe treatment. If the pilot is successful, it will be rolled out to other Cape Town beaches in the near future.

At Three Anchor Bay, the low flow of water at the north site will be diverted to the city’s sewer system, while chlorine disinfection will be employed at the second site, at Three Anchor Bay South. Meanwhile, an environmentally friendly ultraviolet disinfection process will be trialled at Rocklands.

Right now, the quality of storm water in Sea Point and Mouille Point does not comply with safety regulations for bathing, and is contributing significantly to the pollution of Cape Town’s sea water.

The construction of the infrastructure required for the pilot project is already underway and should take about five months to complete. Then careful monitoring will begin, which will include monitoring of impact on marine wildlife. Hopefully other beaches which are currently non-compliant with safety standards for swimmers will soon be able to follow suit.

[Source: SA The Good News]