[imagesource:wikimediacommons]

Based on an independent analysis of water samples taken over the past seven weeks (the latest being November 15), the City of Cape Town has confirmed that Cape Town’s most popular beaches received excellent water quality results ahead of the festive season.

Not going to lie, this feels a little hard to take in after Professor Leslie Petrik, a water treatment expert, said that swimming in the sea along Cape Town’s coastline these days is a “case of Russian roulette” in terms of the quality of water.

Nonetheless, the City has awarded eight beaches with the coveted Blue Flag status, alongside a range of other popular recreational nodes, it said in a statement:

Blue Flag beaches are accredited by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) based on ‘excellent’ water quality results from festive season water sampling analysed by the independent South African Bureau for Standards (SABS) laboratory between 1 December and 31 January each year. WESSA uses 33 criteria across four categories for Blue Flag accreditation, including Water Quality, Environmental Management, Safety Services, and Education and Awareness.

Water samples are analysed by an external accredited laboratory – the SABS Lab – for the number of enterococci per 100ml, the Gold Standard for water quality analysis.

The Blue Flag beaches are Bikini Beach, Camps Bay, Clifton 4th Beach, Fish Hoek, Llandudno, Melkbosstrand, Muizenberg and Silwerstroom. Pilot blue flag status was also awarded to Mnandi and Strandfontein.

Since the testing period hasn’t even happened in time yet, these Blue Flag beaches must be from last year’s results.

Still, the City assured that beachgoers can be confident that Coastal Water Quality guidelines are being met and monitored on an ongoing basis. The Coastal Management branch will be continuously monitoring trends at 30 key beach locations over a 12-month rolling period in addition to the weekly samples along Blue Flag stretches of beach.

When a pollution incident is detected, the City uses protocols to swiftly contain and rectify the situation, which entails a temporary pause on swimming along a section of the beach until water sampling confirms the water is safe again, with signage displayed in these instances to keep the public up to date.

The City said they are thrilled to announce that the results for 147 water quality samples show excellent water quality across Cape Town’s key recreational nodes or beaches:

“A full 95% of water samples are well below the single sample standard of 180 enterococci per 100ml. This confirms water quality is not just good, but excellent by global standards across our popular beaches.

“I want to urge the public not to fall for baseless misinformation about our coastal water quality, especially where these allegations are not backed up by scientific evidence, namely enterococci data from more than just one sample, over a period of time, at a specific beach.

You can check out the table showing the outcome of seven weeks of actual data for key recreational nodes and popular beaches along Cape Town’s coastline over here.

Seems positive and reassuring. Off to the beach?

[source:capetowngov]