news release
    21st Apr 2005

A delegation of surfers from the UK and France will meet in Brussels on the 21st April to urge MEP’s to get behind their calls for greater protection from polluted water in Europe.

Wearing wetsuits and carrying surfboards the rubber clad campaigners from Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and Surfrider Foundation Europe will urge MEP’s to give them their vote when the Parliament’s ENVI (Environment, Public Health and Food safety) committee vote on what new bathing water laws should legislate for in the future.

PHOTOCALL: 08:45 on Thursday 21st April, MEP’s Dr Caroline Lucas (Green) and Marie-Isler Beguin (Green) from ENVI will join surfers outside the European Parliament’s front doors between the PHS and ASP buildings in Brussels. They and others will be invited to take off their shoes and socks to leave a supporting footprint in some sand brought to the city and being representative of Europe’s beaches.

The European Parliament has already had their 1st reading on the revision of the 1976 EU Bathing Water Directive, which lays down water quality standards that beaches, lakes and rivers should meet if they are to be promoted as bathing waters. In their 1st reading (October 2003) the European Parliament supported the surfers’ calls for greater health protection for Europe’s recreational water users which use water in there millions to stay fit and healthy. The extension of recognising recreational water users was not however supported by Europe’s governments when they formed their opinion at a December 2004 Environment Council meeting.

SAS and Surfrider believe that in modernising this Directive it has take account of the modern day water user. Since the Directive’s conception in 1976, traditional bathing as we knew it has changed radically, with more and more people going to a bathing water or body of water for more active recreation such as surfing, windsurfing, kayaking, diving or dinghy sailing. Science has shown these sports as popular activities for bathers to get involved with, but because of their nature – greater immersion and ingestion of water – it can lead to greater health risks. Ear, nose and throat infections are all common amongst surfers, but Hepatitis A, Meningitis or Ecoli 0157 all survive in sewage polluted water and represent a greater threat to the recreational water user.

To not meaningfully recognise this group of water users in the new legislation would be discriminatory – the laws would protect some bathers but not others and we call for ENVI’s support and recommendation that the Directive’s scope should be broadened before the Directive has its 2nd reading from the Parliament in May.

Richard Hardy, SAS Campaigns Director: “We hope that MEP’s on ENVI will recognise the importance of protecting all groups of bathers and not just some of them in forming their opinion to go before the Committee. Without such a recognition the EU Directive will have failed to do what it set out to achieve and that is protect public health”.

For more information please contact Richard Hardy or Andy Cummins on Tel: 00 44 (0) 7711 767548 or 00 44 (0) 1872 553001

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