Stanwell Park, Austinmer and Woonona beaches top water quality monitoring in north

BEACHES at Stanwell Park, Austinmer and Woonona have topped the list of water quality for swimming in the northern suburbs.

The latest State of the Beaches report provides an overview of water quality at 214 swimming locations across the State, which are monitored under the NSW Government’s Beachwatch and Beachwatch Partnership programs.

The report revealed that all beaches monitored in the northern suburbs were graded good to very good.

Overall, the report revealed 94 per cent of monitored ocean beaches and 80 per cent of all monitored swimming spots across NSW were graded as good or very good.

NSW Minister for Environment James Griffin said State of the Beaches has five categories of water quality rating: very good, good, fair, poor or very poor.

“Despite the wettest summer in a decade, and Sydney’s wettest year on record, there’s been only a slight decline on last year’s results,” Mr Griffin said. 

“In 2021–22, 172 (80 per cent) of the 214 swimming sites in NSW were graded as good or very good, indicating they were suitable for swimming most of the time.

“We’ve been running the Beachwatch monitoring program since 1989, and we know how important it is for providing confidence to the people of NSW, which is why we announced in the NSW Budget that we’re expanding the Beachwatch Partnership program with $18.5 million over 10 years.” 

Rainfall is the major driver of pollution in recreational waters, as it generates storm water runoff and triggers discharges from wastewater treatment systems.

Many estuarine, lake and lagoon swimming sites did not perform as well as ocean beaches as they are more susceptible to wet weather impacts.

The Beachwatch program works by routinely collecting water from swimming sites and testing for bacteria as an indicator of contamination.

Beachwatch also issues daily early morning forecasts for the predicted water quality at 160 swim site in Sydney, Hunter, Central Coast and Illawarra regions.

The 2021-22 State of the Beaches report can be viewed online.launch  

Daily Beachwatch pollution forecasts and weekly star ratings for beaches across NSW can be found at Beachwatchlaunch and on Twitter and Facebook.

Subscribe to the latest Bulli & Clifton Times stories

PAYPAL TIP JAR

YOU can support The Bulli & Clifton Times and/or the Looking Back local history websites with a donation through PayPal. Your generous patronage of my work and research, however small it appears to you, will greatly help me with my continuing costs, and help support independent journalism and local news media. You can leave a small tip here of $2, or several small tips, just increase the amount as you like. Your support helps provide an independent and free source of local news and information.

A$2.00

OR DONATE BY DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD

Don’t have PayPal? Instead, you can support my work by leaving a $2 debit or credit card donation. Your generous patronage of my work and research, however small it appears to you, will greatly help with my continuing publication costs.