Spectacular drone footage of Hook Head lighthouse on Wexford on a sunny day. Video: WhineyKilliney <\/p>\n
Adam McDonnell kitesurfing on Portmarnock strand at the launch of An Taisces Clean Coasts Week, which takes place from May 9th to 18th. Photograph: Naoise Culhane <\/p>\n
Beaches that fail to meet EU bathing water quality standards in the future will require to be closed to swimmers for an entire season, the Environmental Protection Agency has warned. <\/p>\n
In its latest report on bathing water quality, the EPA found that 97 per cent of Irelands 135 designated bathing places comply with the EU directive mainly due to improvements in sewage treatment systems and better water quality management. <\/p>\n
But new EU requirements to assess water quality over a rolling four-year period mean that bathing places which fail to meet the standard will require to be closed to bathers for the entire following season (2015) while still requiring to be monitored. <\/p>\n
The new targets represent a further strengthening of measures to protect public health and amount to an almost two-fold decrease in the levels of microbiological contamination deemed to be acceptable for bathing waters, the EPA report for 2013 said. <\/p>\n
Of the 135 bathing places, 114 achieved good status, 17 were rated as sufficient and only four bathing waters were rated as poor Clifden, Co Galway; Dugort, on Achill Island, Co Mayo; Ballyloughnane, in Galway city; and Lilliput, on Lough Ennell, Co Westmeath. <\/p>\n
PollutionClifden continues to be subject to episodic pollution by the local sewage treatment plant, but work is under way to upgrade the plant, and the EPA report said this would hopefully bring about an improvement in water quality over the coming years. <\/p>\n
Lilliput experienced a lengthy period of contamination late in the season believed to have originated from a wastewater source while Dugort was impacted by a rare pumping station malfunction and Ballyloughane experienced two pollution incidents. <\/p>\n
It had been anticipated that the number of waters rated good might have been slightly higher, but the presence of persistent but relatively low levels of bacterial pollution was observed in some waters in particular some of the popular east-coast bathing areas. <\/p>\n
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Almost all Irish beaches given clean bill of health<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Spectacular drone footage of Hook Head lighthouse on Wexford on a sunny day. Continue reading