Thanet Blue Flags, some thoughts from Thanet District Council

To the council's Press and Media Manager in response to the press release 

Hi ****

I did try to stop this happening last year, posted about it wrote to officers and so on, no recriminations and I am prepared to have another go.

This situation wasn’t caused by pollution incidents but by the failure to have a pollution warning set-up in place.

This is about not understanding the blue flag criteria, most especially criterion 28, anyway if the council wants its blue flag beaches back please put me in touch with the right officer and I will help get the situation resolved.   

Best regards Michael

Their Reply

Hi Michael

I've passed your e-mail on and someone will be coming back to you about it.

Regards,

**** 

From their Commercial Services Manager

Michael
As **** indicated she asked me to respond to you on this issue.

You have made a series of statements on your Blog that are just not
correct and in no way reflect the reason why the area has had a number
of its Blue Flag beaches reduced to Quality Coast awards.

The reduction is entirely based on a very limited number of lower than
excellent results we got last year, which almost all occurred during the
almost continuous north easterly in August last year. None of these
results appear to be associated with situations where discharges may
have occurred based on information our Environmental Health section
receive from Southern Water and the Environment Agency. This factor was
not a consideration that formed any part of the decisions by the Keep
Britain Tidy group in making Blue Flag award decisions for us.

In fact, because of the sheer number of awards we have got in the past
and still have we have regular contact both with the KBT group and the
EA and we are often used as a test ground for the work they do. This
includes working as a partner with the EA in planning for the
introduction of the new water standards. The current signs going up for
this year have been adapted to reflect this partnership work in advance
of the statutory requirement to display more information, and include
the position of sewage outfalls around the coast.

Your Blog indicates that the reduction in Blue Flag numbers is based on
a failure to act by the council which is entirely incorrect and the
council looks forward these incorrect statements being removed from your
Blog, as obviously they are untrue and damaging to the council's
reputation. This includes the statements copied below:

"My understanding is that if on these occasions the council put up
signs notifying the public that the sea was contaminated then we would
be able to retain our blue flag status on the effected beaches. 

What happens instead is that nothing happens, by this I mean that after
Southern Water make an emergency discharge of sewage near to one of our
bathing beaches, this doesn't result in the council taking down the blue
flag and putting up warning signs telling people the sea is
contaminated.

I tried last year to get the council to set up a system to overcome
this problem, the result appears to have been inaction causing most of
our beaches to be stripped of their blue flag status."

It would perhaps be helpful for completion's sake to mention the 7 bays
for which we have achieved Quality Coast awards from KBT that measure
very much the same things, and give a clear indication that our water is
safe to swim in.

Your Blog also seems to give the view that in swimming around our coast
would involve encounters with sewage. This is just not the case and
gives entirely the wrong impression as the chances of this happening are
vanishingly small.

***

My reply

*****. I think it easiest to illustrate what I mean with one example.

This was the pollution on 12^th July 2010, this is what Southern Water’s senior engineer had to say about it.

“Pump failure 10 July Military Road pump station, engineer sent; wet well went to high level, 120 to 150 Litres per sec sent to Wetherlees.

Wet weather between 02.00 and 04.30 12th July 7.6mm rainfall. Pump No. 2 failed 02.00 resulting in emergency discharge early am.”

So on the morning of Monday 12^th July Southern Water made a considerable discharge which they recorded, I don’t think this information was passed on to the council, if it was no action was taken.

No warning notices appeared at entrances to both beaches and tourist information offices, as would be required by blue flag criterion 28.

Even more ludicrously on the same day the EA made their weekly test, as though nothing had happened, I would assume that the results of this test would have been completed by the Friday 16^th July 2010, so if the council were using these results to decide when to place warning notices, then I assume the unusually high levels of faecal coliforms 3,000 colonies per 100 ml, (this really is swimming in sewage) the council would have acted on this.

Once again no signs and during the weekend 17^th 18^th July the South East Region Beach Lifeguard Championships were held at Ramsgate main Sands.

This is a situation that suggests no system at all and my understanding is that it was the lack of any system that lead to Surfers Against Sewage putting pressure on the blue flag program to remove most of the Thanet beaches.

The solution to this problem is:

1 To have a proper system of communication with Southern Water that results in action being taken in the event of an emergency discharge. 

2 To engage in a serried of post discharge tests to ascertain how long after a discharge the signage needs to be in place.

3 To contact Surfers against sewage explaining that a proper system has been put in place.

4 To contact the EA and assure that their testing takes into account emergency discharges.

5 To explain the improves system to the people running the blue flag scheme.

Best regards Michael

His Reply to me.

Michael

Thanks for the email. No argument that the Council needs to get as

timely information as possible from Southern Water to allow it to make

decisions about signage and the flying of Blue Flags. However, I must

stress that this was not a factor in KBT's decision as this was

straightforwardly based on the results collected by the EA and run

through their normal criteria.

You seem to be reiterating your contention about this issue leading to

the loss of the Blue Flags to others but as indicated above this is just

not correct.

***

My reply to him

*** I think one major factor here is the SOS campaign and the marked similarity between the beaches dropped this year and the beaches they asked to be dropped during their campaign last year.

See http://www.sas.org.uk/news/2010/08/06/sas-call-for-35-blue-flags-to-be-withdrawn-from-beaches-around-the-uk/ I think there is a sense that the blue flag organisers look to be preparing to drop Thanet, which could be a bit of a nuisance factor in their three and half thousand beaches awarded world wide.

Underlying all of this is that the main issue for most people is being assured that the water they are swimming in is actually clean.

Very important here is that action needs to be taken now, at the beginning of the testing season, the most important of action being good clear public information following an emergency discharge.

Added to this I would think some clear information about the way recent periods of heavy rainfall can effect bathing water quality in areas with mixed drainage systems and emergency outfall pipes. Since this means most of Europe and all of the UK it shouldn’t be difficult to phrase that in a way that shows TDC is taking more care of bathers than most other places.

There have also been some recent changes to the EU bathing water directive that I think may be pertinent.

Yes I am saying that we lost at least one of our blue flags because of a poor system, mostly weak communication, in the instance I have mentioned, what actually happened was an emergency discharge caused by plant failure, followed by a test being made on the same day and adjacent to the emergency discharge that was then submitted as being representative of the bathing water quality. Adding up the rest of the results it would seem that this one error caused Ramsgate to lose its blue flag status.

Alternatively you are saying that we have an emergency spillage of some sort, something periodically happens on every beach in the world, then test in the middle of the spillage on the day of the spillage and submit that result.

I will publish this correspondence, with your name omitted, on the blog, which will hopefully clarify the situation; I understand that the whole blogging situation isn’t an easy one for the council. I do endeavour to obtain accurate information and present a clear picture and wish to thank you for replying promptly and constructively.   

Best regards Michael



There is also some comment about this on Thanet Life, see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/05/interesting-times.html