[imagesource:here]

It looks like you’ll be gambling with your health when you swim In Cape Town this summer.

Apparently, swimming in the sea along Cape Town’s coastline these days is a “case of Russian roulette” according to a water treatment expert via EWN.

This statement is in light of the City of Cape Town’s coastal management expressing fears that there were alarming levels of E. coli along the Cape Coast on Wednesday.

City coastal management manager, Greg Oelofse, tried to reassure the situation by saying that E.coli levels along Cape Town’s coastline were variable but the quality of the water was relatively good.

However, Professor Leslie Petrik, a water treatment expert, calls bullsh*t:

“You just need to look at the city’s own Know Your Coast reports to see how many times our beaches and recreational areas like tidal pools are actually not meeting the required criteria for safety.”

While Petrik is sure the reports show that people are in danger when swimming, Oelofse reckons there’s a very low level of health risks associated with swimming at your favourite Cape Town beach.

“We never can say that the water’s one hundred percent safe for swimming. So what the national water quality guidelines do and that’s because it’s an urban environment, there are sources of pollution is that there’s variability of risk. So, broadly speaking, at almost all of our recreational facilities the water quality fall within either excellent or good,” Oelofse said.

He said that beachgoers should look for warning signboards at beaches which would indicate whether it’s safe to swim.

We know that the City has not been treating our oceans with respect, pumping more than the maximum allowed volume of five million litres of sewage per day from the outfall in Hout Bay – and for all we know the other two in Green Point and Camps Bay, too.

Generally speaking, the oceans are getting increasingly siff, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a plan to stop this from getting worse anytime soon.

[source:ewn]