Canterbury Water Quality Issues
Recent newspaper articles have pointed out the declining water quality at some of Canterbury’s favourite swimming spots. Environment Canterbury collects and analyses samples from all around the region throughout the year but also has a summer testing programme. The recreational bathing programme is run throughout New Zealand from November to March each year and monitors the health of popular swimming sites.
At least 550 sites are monitored weekly by 15 regional authorities around New Zealand with Canterbury contributing at least 100 of those sites.
In the past year a third of the Canterbury river sites have been flagged as unsafe for bathing, with David Caygill from ECan agreeing that the quality of the water has deteriorated.
The poor water quality where people want to swim is largely a result of toxic algae, which is caused by elevated levels of nutrients such as nitrate and phosphorus in the water. The level of nutrients combined with low river flows has seen the rivers bloom with algae during the summer.
ECan has applied rules around the discharge of nutrients but say it will take adherence to the rules, a behavioural change and also time for the river systems to improve. Local councils also need to focus on the waterways by monitoring stormwater runoff and improvements in sewage treatment and disposal.
A combined effort from councils at all levels and the general population is needed to improve the quality of our environment. It will take more time to see the improvements – I only hope that we have seen our water quality at its worst, and that we will see improvements from next summer onwards.
The Environment Canterbury Swimming Water Quality website can be viewed here: Bathing Water.
Eurofins-ELS Recreational Bathing Water Testing
During summer Eurofins-ELS collects and tests over 150 samples per week from popular swimming locations in both rivers and the sea. Our many customers receive reports that can include onsite comments, compliance statements as well as extra testing such as the faecal coliform result shown in the report below, which is used as to indicate the water quality of shellfish collection sites.
