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Deadly Bacteria Not Looked For in Bathing Water Quality Checks, Scientists Warn

1st June 2021
Portmarnock Beach in Fingal
File image of Portmarnock Beach in Fingal Credit: Rory Deegan/Wikimedia

Scientists at NUI Galway warn that a deadly bacteria found in many highly rated sea swimming spots in Ireland is not currently tested for as EU regulations do not require it.

According to The Irish Independent, reseaechers with NUI Galway’s PIER Project found that more than half (57%) of all samples it collected from coastal bathing areas tested positive for Shiga toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC).

Lake and river bathing areas fared even worse, with 78% of sites samples showing signs of the particularly virulent form of E. coli.

The researchers said all of the sampled sea bathing areas — in Galway, Cork and Fingal — that had STEC present have been rated good to excellent for water quality by EU standards.

“These findings highlight the need to consider revision of current EU bathing water quality monitoring criteria,” the PIER Project’s Professor Dearbháile Morris said.

The Irish Independent has much more on the story HERE.

Published in Coastal Notes, Sea Swim
MacDara Conroy

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MacDara Conroy

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MacDara Conroy is a contributor covering all things on the water, from boating and wildlife to science and business

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Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.