Bacterial contamination at recreational bathing sites.

Posted 4 days ago by Patrick Hipgrave Less than a minute to read

We've just released an update to the ‘Faecal indicator bacteria at recreational bathing sites’ surveillance report and updated the dashboards for this indicator.

These are the key facts:

During the 2023/24 bathing season, 63.1% of monitored river swimming sites, 34.3% of beach sites and 39.4% of lake sites were unsafe to swim at on at least one occasion.
In the 2023/24 bathing season, 27.2% of monitored river swimming sites, 3.9% of beach sites and 13.8% of lake sites were frequently unsuitable for swimming, with 20.0% or more of routine monitoring results showing they were unsafe to swim.
Based on monitoring during the summer bathing seasons between 2019 and 2024, 72% of freshwater bathing sites (rivers and lakes) and 19% of marine bathing sites (beaches) could be considered unsafe for swimming at any time.
The Gisborne region had the highest proportion of unsafe freshwater bathing sites, with 100% of the 14 sampled sites receiving ‘poor’ grades for the 2019-24 period. The Taranaki region had the highest proportion of unsafe beaches, with 67% (12 out of 18 sampled) being graded ‘poor’.

Here’s a link to the report: https://ehinz.ac.nz/indicators/water/recreational-water/suitability-for-swimming/