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news release

31 Jan 2008

Have your say on how the new Bathing Water Legislation is implemented in England, Wales and Scotland

Dear Water Quality Division,

As a keen recreational water user I am supporting Surfers Against Sewage's efforts to see a strong Bathing Water Directive that best protects the health of those using the water for sports such as surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, kayaking, diving, dinghy sailing and swimming.

In transposing the Directive into Scottish Regulations can I urge you to:

Aim above meeting the minimum requirements of the Directive by targeting the new 'good' water quality standard instead of the 'sufficient' standard for which all UK designated bathing waters should meet by 2015.
Focus on providing real time, predictive public information to recreational water user, so they can make more informed choices as to when and where they use the water for recreation.
Re-examine the current protocol that exists on how recreational water users are informed of pollution events and the advice issued to them.
Maintain a programme of at least 15 water quality samples per bathing water per season.
Use notices advising against bathing when appropriate but DO NOT issue bathing prohibitions.
Encourage public participation in defining what is a bathing water and how they are designated.

Yours truly,

A supporter of Surfers Against Sewage

After a decade of campaigning we welcomed the EU’s revision of the Bathing Water Directive in 2006 and now look forward to a strengthened Directive that should better protect the health of recreational water users in the UK.

The Directive must be transposed into Regulations for England and Wales by 24th March 2008. Help us make the Directive as strong as possible by sending this email action to governments in England and Wales. It should be received by them no later than midnight on Monday 4th February.

Take Action

The medical bags are plastic and contain sodium chloride (salt) and Nutrineal (amino acid) solutions and were en route from Ireland to Spain to be used in hospitals. The products were part of a container shipload that left Castlebar on the 10th December bound for the port of Bilbao in Northern Spain. The vessel carrying these products, the MV Endeavor, reportedly met high seas off the Isles of Scilly and it was subsequently found that 11 containers had been lost overboard. The containers are also believed to contain raw tobacco, milk powder, wooden doors, scaffolding and non-toxic fibre.

SAS are concerned by the increasing impact shipping containers lost at sea are having on the marine environment and those using the water for recreation and have today written to the Shipping Minister for his assessment of the situation in UK waters. Lloyd's estimated worldwide container underway losses to have reached 10,000 - per year - in 2004.

Only last year over 100 containers spilled overboard when the MSC Napoli got into difficulties in local waters. £50million was spent on the clean up though not before it had a devastating affect on local wildlife with over 1000 sea birds affected by the disaster. It is quite possible that these see-through PVC medical bags will be mistaken by local wildlife for jellyfish and if swallowed could cause death or serious injury.

SAS have also sent some of the medical bags to the ship owners (Endeavor Shipping BV in the Netherlands) and the ship's International Safety Management company (JR Ship Management BV in the Netherlands) who are responsible for the safe operation of the ship and its pollution prevention. We expect a comprehensive report from them on the how this incident occurred. This forms part of our 'Return To Offender' anti-beach litter campaign.

www.sas.org.uk/campaign/marine_litter/return_to_offender.php

Richard Hardy SAS Campaigns Director says: "Whilst the salt solution inside the medical bags will feel quite at home in the sea the plastic bag it's contained in can cause all kind of trouble, particularly for local marine wildlife. With lost shipping containers increasingly being noticed as responsible for beach litter incidents SAS would like to see an urgent investigation carried out by the Department of Transport into it's true impact for UK coastal waters".

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