East London’s cleanest beach is …

Dispatch Reporter Andrew Stone takes a water sample at Gonubie Beach while a lifeguard tells people to move away from the river mouth. Picture: NIGEL LOUW

Gonubie has emerged as East London’s cleanest beach  following three weeks of independent water quality tests by the  Daily Dispatch, reports Andrew Stone.
The city’s only Blue Flag facility recorded the lowest faecal  coliform count over the test period with an average of 15  CFU/100ml, beating Bonza Bay into second place with an  average of 44 CFU/100ml.
Orient Beach was next in the clean water stakes with an  average of 218 CFU/100ml followed by Eastern Beach and  Nahoon which returned averages of 460 and 831 respectively.
The presence of faecal coliforms in water is an indicator of  the possibility of the presence of disease-causing bacteria such  as cholera.
According to the World Health Organisation guidelines for  safe recreational water environments, faecal pollution of water  can lead to health problems because of the presence of  infectious microorganisms.
Counts of 1500CFU/100ml and higher are considered haz ardous to human health and anyone swimming in water with  high faecal coliform levels could potentially be putting them selves at risk of getting diarrhoea, infections, skin rashes and  blood poisoning.
Last year Gonubie’s Blue Flag status was stripped away  because of high levels of bacteria in the sea, but the beach was  awarded its status again in October.
South Africa was the first country outside Europe to win Blue  Flags for beaches that meet excellence in safety, amenities,  cleanliness and environmental standards.
Morgan Griffiths, Blue Flag programme assistant, said or dinary beaches were not expected to conform to Blue Flag  standards.
“Blue Flag beaches are the five-star versions of bathing  beaches,” he said.
Using a system known as Computer Aided Reporting (CAR),  the Dispatch recorded data from each of the five beaches over  the three week test period which began November 30.
Information retrieved included water quality, water tem perature, weather conditions, tides and wind direction.
Following analysis of the data Gonubie emerged as the clear  winner. Of the 15 days that tests were conducted on water  samples taken at the beach, just four returned counts higher  than zero.

• Read the full story in Thursday’s Dispatch and Online.