My Account
Safeswim’s water quality data shows that Little Manly Beach continues to have the poorest water quality on the Hibiscus Coast, and investigations are continuing into the cause.
Swimsafe is a joint initiative between Auckland Council, Watercare, Surf Lifesaving Northern Region and Auckland Regional Public Health Service. As well as gathering data to advise the public on water quality, it works to locate and fix any issues.
Problems generally only occur after rainfall – rainfall data is used to predict water quality with around 80-90 percent accuracy.
Last summer (November 2018-April 30, 2019), Little Manly had the poorest water quality in the area, being swimmable just 78 percent of that time. By comparison, Hatfields Beach was the best – swimmable 97 percent of the time.
Although Red Beach was swimmable 91.2 percent of the time, water quality issues were investigated there last summer and Swimsafe programme manager Nick Vigar says “a number of issues were fixed”, with follow up sampling still taking place.
Mr Vigar says a combination of water quality results and swimmer numbers help Swimsafe prioritise beaches for further investigations. These start with outlet screening – testing water quality in wet and dry weather from all stormwater outlets along the beach.
“Where these show there may be issues, we progress into testing further up in the network, looking at public assets, as well as private property investigations, if required,” Mr Vigar says. “This summer we have an active investigation at Little Manly. The stormwater outlet screening has indicated that there appear to be issues back up in the stormwater and wastewater networks – the exercise now is to find those issues and fix them.”
Auckland Council’s water quality targeted rate has enabled $452 million to be invested in cleaning up beaches, harbours and streams.
This summer more beaches than ever will be able to be checked on the Safeswim website – something the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board requested last term. New beaches included are Arkles Bay, Orewa River, Red Beach (North and South), Okoromai, Te Haruhi Bay and Tindalls Bay.
Council recommends you take a look at the site before heading to a particular beach. Info: safeswim.org.nz
