The Galway Planning Committee of An Taisce say that ‘misleading’ reporting by Galway City Council via its Facebook page regarding the water quality of Ballyloughane Beach on Friday, August 4, put bathers at risk of contracting E.Coli and Intestinal Enterococci.
In a post on shared to Galway City Council’s Facebook page at 12pm on Friday, August 4, four of Galway’s beaches (Grattan, Ballyloughane, Silverstrand and Salthill ) were either described as having either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ bathing water quality determined from a sample taken on Monday, July 31, but during the same period Ballyloughane Beach was reported as ‘poor’ on breach tracking website; beaches.ie, with the sample from July 31, containing very high levels of E.coli and Intestinal Enterococci, rendering the water ‘unsafe for swimming’.
Just two hours later on the same Facebook page, Galway City Council announced a ‘Prior Warning Notice’ for Ballyloughane and Grattan Road Beaches, stating, ‘in advance of the next sampling date on Tuesday 8th August 2023. These beaches are susceptible to Short Term Pollution events and are known to be affected by heavy rainfall. Bathers are asked to observe precautions displayed on posters’.
An Taisce have called the social media posts shared by Galway City Council ‘very misleading’ and avoidable given that the link to rain and deteriorating water quality at Ballyloughane has been a previously established concern. According to An Taisce, rainfall of above 3.2 millimetres of rain per hour trigger an overflow in the wastewater treatment system, with the surplus of wastewater pouring into the River Corrib, through the Claddagh Basin and onwards to local beaches. The rainfall recorded at the University of Galway weather station on Sunday, July 30, one day before a sample was taken to determine water quality, resulted in 3.4 millimetres of water per hour between 15:00 and 16:00, meaning that the quality of beaches like Ballyloughane were already actively declining from that point on.
Chairperson of the Galway Planning Committee, Peter Butler, said that Galway City Council should have warned swimmers before Monday, July 31 that there was likely to be poor quality bathing water on local beaches but they did not do so, instead the next update regarding water quality was on Tuesday, August 1, declaring it as ‘excellent’.
“The least Galway City Council could have done afterwards, was to tell swimmers that the water quality at Ballyloughane on that Monday, July 31, was ‘poor’ and unsafe for swimming. Instead, they highlighted that the water quality there on Tuesday, August 1, was ‘excellent’ - which is blatantly untrue.”
The statement on the issue is concluded with a question from An Taisce directed at Galway City Council, querying who approved the taking of a sample to test Galway’s water quality on Tuesday, August 1, when the standard practice requests that one sample be taken every second Monday, with Bank Holiday’s being the only deviation in the schedule.
