from Sunday Herald, 08 July 2001
Scotland's worst polluted bathing beaches are being shunned by the Scottish Executive in breach of European law, the Sunday Herald can reveal. More than 40 popular beaches ignored by ministers are so contaminated with raw sewage that they are failing to meet recommended safety guidelines.
Among the beaches left off the official list of designated bathing waters are the two filthiest found so far this year - at the picturesque resort of Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, and at Largs main beach in North Ayrshire. Both are so polluted that they have already won the dubious honour of becoming the first beaches to breach the basic minimum standards for the whole bathing season.
A joint investigation by the Sunday Herald and Friends of the Earth Scotland as part of the Save Our Beaches campaign launched two weeks ago has uncovered the secret shame of Scotland's hidden shores.
Around the coastline there are at least 50 attractive and well-used beaches which have not been designated as bathing beaches by the Scottish Executive under the European Union's 1976 bathing waters directive. As well as Broughty Ferry and Largs, these include popular resorts such as Helensburgh, Kirkcaldy, Dalgety Bay, Barassie and Newburgh. But the results of unpublished monitoring carried out by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and passed to the Sunday Herald show that many of them are more polluted than officially designated bathing waters.
An analysis of 188 samples from 52 undesignated bathing waters in June by Friends of the Earth Scotland reveals that samples from 41 beaches have already failed to meet the safety guidelines recommended by the EU for designated beaches. This means that one or more water samples have contained more than the guideline levels set for faecal coliforms or other bacteria associated with human or animal waste.
The dirtiest beaches have also breached the much laxer mandatory sewage limit, which can result in prosecution. Broughty Ferry and Largs main beach have both registered two samples in breach of the mandatory limit, which means they have already exceeded the EU's 95% compliance target for the whole summer.
Six other beaches have so far recorded one sample in breach of the mandatory limit: Dunnet Bay Castlehill in Caithness, Helensburgh on the Clyde, Maidens in South Ayrshire, Loch Ken in Dumfries and Galloway, Dalgety Bay and Kirkcaldy Linktown in Fife. Although other beaches, such as Barassie and Greenan in South Ayrshire and Newburgh in Aberdeenshire, did not breach the mandatory limit, they registered five failures to meet the guidelines.
At the other end of the scale, only 11 of the 52 undesignated beaches have so far been entirely within the safety guidelines. The concentration of coliforms in every sample from 10 beaches on the east coast and Loch Linnhe on the west coast has so far stayed below the recommended guideline levels (see table below).
The discovery of serious contamination on so many well-frequented beaches suggests that the environmental crisis afflicting our shores is much worse than the Scottish Executive and the water authorities would have us believe. By failing to designate popular bathing waters, and by failing to clean them up, the executive is flouting the EU bathing waters directive.
'These latest results from SEPA highlight the water quality problems at Scotland's ignored beaches. It is quite clear that a beach which is not on the official list comes well down the priorities when it comes to spending on water quality improvements - even if that beach is well used by the public,' said Dr Richard Dixon, head of research at Friends of the Earth Scotland.
The North of Scotland Water Authority argued that the pollution at Broughty Ferry should be significantly reduced when a new £100 million sewage improvement scheme is completed this autumn. But it could not promise that this would bring the water up to EU guideline levels, which is the aim of Dundee Council.
'In the 21st century, it is no longer acceptable that people in Dundee can flush their toilet and see the contents wash up on beaches like Broughty Ferry a short time later,' said the authority's chairman, Colin Rennie. 'The Tay waste water project is delivering the biggest environmental clean-up of the Tay estuary for more than 100 years.'
West of Scotland Water was 'disappointed' about the failure at Largs, where it accepted sewage treatment was 'inadequate' . Although no decision has yet been made, the authority was confident that a new £11.2m sewerage scheme would enable it to clean up the water before the end of 2005.
The undesignated beaches are regularly monitored by SEPA but the results are not all published during the bathing season. SEPA did, however, provide raw data in response to a request by the Sunday Herald.
'SEPA is working closely with the water authorities on the installation of improved sewage treatment systems, and with the agricultural community on preventing pollution from farming activities,' said a spokesman.
The Scottish Executive said the bathing waters directive was being revised by the EU, which was expected to make significant changes. It would be 'irresponsible', said a spokeswoman, to designate any more beaches until the implications of such changes had become clearer.
FULL LIST OF SCOTLAND'S 'HIDDEN' BEACHES(marks out of ten for clean water so far this year)
St Combs 10
Lossiemouth Silversands 10
Loch Linnhe 10
Cramond 10
Earlsferry 10
Anstruster Billow Ness 10
Tentsmuir Sands 10
Pathhead Sands 10
Easthaven 10
Arbroath Victoria Park 10
Lunan Bay 10
Culzean 9.2
Mossyard 9.2
Largs Pencil 9
Hopeman 9
Sandend 9
Collieston 9
Buckie 9
Thurso Bay 9
Fisherrow West 9
Fisherrow East 9
Longniddry 9
Leven East 9
Largo East 9
Aberdour Harbour 9
St Cyrus 9
Milarrochy Bay 8.3
Dunure 8.3
Heads of Ayr 8.3
Lower Largo 8
Monifieth 8
Kirkcaldy Seafield 8
Croy 7.5
Stevenston 7.5
Seamill 7
Fairlie 7
Lossiemouth East 7
Tayport 7
Kinghorn Harbour 7
Loch Ken 6.7
Carlingwark Loch 6.7
Lunderston Bay 6.7
Greenan 6.4
Barassie 5.8
Newburgh 5
Dalgety Bay 5
Helensburgh 4.2
Maidens 4.2
Kirkcaldy Linktown 4
Dunnet Bay Castlehill 2
Largs Main 0
Broughty Ferry 0
