news release
    22nd Apr 2005

A delegation of surfers from the UK and France have returned from a Brussels demonstration that urged MEP’s to get behind their calls for greater protection from polluted water in Europe.

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) had teamed up with its European counterparts Surfrider Foundation Europe to urge MEP’s to give them their vote when the Parliament’s ENVI (Environment, Public Health and Food safety) committee voted on what new bathing water laws should legislate for in the future.

Despite support key support from Green MEP’s Dr Caroline Lucas (UK), Marie-Isler Beguin (French), and Gerard Onesta, (Vice President of the European Parliament) ENVI Committee members voted against widespread measures that would have better protected the health of recreational water users at popular recreational sites.

The report now goes forward to the full European Parliament for vote on its 2nd Reading.

SAS are bitterly disappointed that the Parliament has now backed down on its 1st Reading in October 2003, when it recognised that Europe’s bathing waters and their users had changed radically from when the 1976 Directive was brought into force.

SAS have argued for 15 years that the Bathing Water Directive needs to account for modern day bathing that now includes surfing, windsurfing, kayaking, diving and dinghy sailing.

SAS and Surfrider believe that in modernising this Directive it has to 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 revised legislation is discriminatory – the law will protect some bathers but not others.

Richard Hardy, SAS Campaigns Director: “We are bitterly disappointed that MEP’s have backed down on giving greater health protection to groups such as surfers, who are at greatest risk from coming into contact with polluted water. We will look to challenge this decision when the legislation comes before the full Parliament’s vote in May”.

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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