Barry Island's beaches are among the most best visited in Wales and support thriving businesses who feed and entertain thousands of visitors. But in recent years, the authorities have been worried by a trend they cannot explain, there are growing levels of bacteria usually associated with sewage pollution in the water.
Five years ago, Whitmore Bay was the proud holder of the trophy of Europe's cleanest, best-kept beaches, a Blue Flag. Yet it has lost the award as its water quality has fallen from 'Excellent' to 'Good'. More worryingly, the water quality at neighbouring Jackson's Bay has fallen even further to 'Sufficient' and is at risk of falling to the lowest rating of 'Poor'.
Natural Resources Wales is now working with the Vale of Glamorgan Council on a project to collect better data on rainfall, river levels, UV radiance and sampling to understand what it happening at the beaches and to provide information to bathers on the predicted water quality during the summer season from mid May until the end of September. The hope is that it will allow the authorities to predict short-term pollution events that could have an impact on Whitmore Bay and Jackson’s Bay.
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At the moment, sampling is done three or four times a month during the summer season and looks for two colonies of two types of bacteria, intestinalEnterococci and escherichiaColi, which are associated usually with sewage pollution. The figures show these are routinely present at both Barry Island beaches - and that both beaches can see spikes. Last year Whitmore Bay saw a major spike when sampling was done on August 30 while Jackson's Bay saw a spike a couple of weeks later on September 14.
Yet the authorities are not certain why. Data provided by Welsh Water on untreated sewage outflows from its sewers at time of high rainfall have been deeply controversial but they do not show large outflows in the Barry area. However the River Cadoxton, which affects both Barry Island beaches, drains a large catchment with residential estates and heavy industry. Its water quality is said to be reduced after heavy rainfall because of sewage or industrial run off from further up the river's catchment.
Visual inspections have shown some clues, the environment.data.gov.uk website says that samplers found "sewage debris was observed in trace amounts on between ten and twenty per cent" of visits to Jackson's Bay. They added that: "Trace amounts of animal faeces were noted at the site on a minority of occasions. Trace amounts of litter were observed at the bathing water the majority of the time and in greater amounts on between an additional ten and twenty per cent of occasions".
Jackson's Bay is a cove connected to Whitmore Bay in Barry, and is popular amongst paddle boarders and is a dog-friendly beach therefore many dogs can be seen playing on the sand or swimming in the sea often.
The 'sufficient' water quality at Jackson's Bay stops some visitors from going into the water. Once bathers Pam and Heather learnt of the rating they were reluctant to swim, Pam says "we would want all of the beaches in Wales to be clean. I would have been keen to go in the water if the water quality was better."
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However not everybody was put off, after coming out of the sea at Jackson's Bay, regular swimmer Laura said that the water seemed clean although "it is sometimes murky and has some litter but I think it depends on the weather." The water quality rating does not effect whether Laura swims at the beach or not, she says "if it was visible then I would think twice but it isn't so I don't mind."
A spokesperson for NRW told WalesOnline: "We cannot say for sure what is causing these high results as Barry is a complex urban catchment. But these are the main sources of pollution that could impact water quality:
- Pollution from sewage – bacteria from sewage can enter our waters as a result of system failures or overflows or directly from sewage works
- Water draining from farms and farmland – manure from livestock or poorly stored slurry can wash into rivers and streams resulting in faecal material entering the sea
- Animals and birds on or near beaches – dog, bird and other animal faeces can affect bathing water as they often contain high levels of bacteria (much higher than treated human waste)
- Water draining from populated areas – water draining from urban areas following heavy rain can contain pollution from a variety of sources, including animal and bird faeces
- Domestic sewage – misconnected drains and poorly located and maintained septic tanks can pollute surface water systems"
NRW and the Vale of Glamorgan Council are hopeful that their pollution monitoring project will pay off.
Fiona Hourahine, Operations Manager for NRW, said: “Introducing pollution risk forecasting in Barry will inform beach management decisions and provide timely water quality advice to the public to enable them to make an informed decision whether to swim. It will also offer resilience to the overall bathing water classifications through discounting of a sample in certain conditions when a warning of predicted poor water quality is given to people, under strict guidelines set in the legislation.”
Cllr Mark Wilson, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services, said: “Barry’s beaches regularly welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors each summer. We know the significance of our beautiful beaches to our residents’ and visitors’ health and well-being.
“We are proud of our beaches in Vale and recognise the importance of public health to our communities. We hope that this project, with the ability to predict water quality, will help us in our commitment to improving public health. It is hoped that the partnership project will eventually improve the water quality classifications of Barry’s favourite beaches.”
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