Council to work with various agencies to improve water quality at two Fingal beaches

Balbriggan Front Beach and Loughshinny Beach saw their rating drop due to diffuse pollution associated with Storm Francis which hit Ireland last August. Diffuse pollution in bathing water occurs when nutrients, pesticides, faecal bacteria, chemicals and fine sediments are lost from the land into local streams, rivers, lakes and groundwater and eventually ends up in the sea.

The classification is based on water quality data for the previous four years (2017-2020) and a temporary notice, advising people not to swim at Balbriggan Front Beach, which has been issued by the EPA and will be in place for the duration of the bathing season which runs from June to September.

Balbriggan’s classification as Poor comes after being rated as Sufficient for many years.  During the period 2017 – 2020, there were a total of 36 samples analysed for bathing water quality at Balbriggan Front Beach and of these five were classified as Poor, one as Sufficient, one as Good while the remaining 29 samples were classified as Excellent.

Fingal County Council considers that the main sources of pollution are sewage discharges and misconnections from domestic plumbing systems, birds and other animals, and contaminated surface streams.

A Management Plan for Balbriggan has been prepared and submitted to the EPA. It can be viewed at https://www.fingal.ie/directory/amenities/beaches/balbriggan-beach. A pollution assessment study on the River Bracken, which flows through the town, was commissioned in 2020 by Balbriggan Tidy Towns Committee and funded by Fingal County Council and LAWPRO and its findings will feed into the Council’s response.

Fingal County Council have carried out individual pipe misconnection surveys to identify locations where sewage pipes have been wrongly connected to surface water run-off pipes and inspections of farms in the catchment area of the River Bracken will be carried out.

The Green Dog Walker Scheme will be promoted during 2021 to encourage responsible dog ownership as dog fouling is a risk to bathing waters while the Council’s dog wardens will carry out targeted inspections at weekends.

Loughshinny beach has dropped from Good rating in 2020 to Sufficient but the Council is confident that the current upgrade of the wastewater infrastructure being undertaken by Irish Water at present will improve water quality in 2022.  This entails removal of an overloaded primary settlement tank and pumping of sewage from the area to the Balbriggan Wastewater Treatment Plant.   

The Burrow Beach in Portane, which had been classified as Poor for several years and had a Do Not Swim advisory notice placed on it, has now been classified as Good following several years of work by the Environment Division to address the pollution pressures that were identified adjacent to the bathing water.  This involved inspection of domestic wastewater treatment systems, caravan parks and misconnection surveys.  Extensive sampling programmes were undertaken under the supervision of Professor Wim Meijer of UCD and through this sampling the sources of pollution were systematically identified for action.  The use of microbial source tracking enabled the “likely” sources of E.coli pressures to be targeted.

Four beaches in Fingal have been rated as Excellent. Portmarnock’s Velvet Strand and Sutton’s Burrow Beach retained their Excellent status while Rush South Beach and Donabate’s Balcarrick Beach saw their water quality rating rise from Good to Excellent.

The Mayor of Fingal, Cllr David Healy, said: “I am delighted that we now have four beaches in Fingal rated as Excellent for their water quality and that the work done at Portrane over the last number of years has resulted in a Good rating and its Do Not Swim Notice being lifted. The Council is committed to pursuing Excellent water quality at all beaches and to obtaining Blue Flags for as many beaches as possible. We can all play an important part in improving bathing water quality by leaving no waste behind on the beach and reporting any pollution we see. The Two Minute Beach Clean is a great initiative and everybody should be doing it at the end of their visit to a beach.”

David Storey, Director of Environment, Climate Action and Active Travel said: “While it was great to see improvements in water quality at some of our beaches, we are disappointed that there was a decline at Balbriggan and Loughshinny.  However, we have learned a lot from the work done at Portrane over the last few years and we have a robust Beach Management Plan in place for Balbriggan which we hope will lead to a better rating.”