The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's Beachwatch program monitors and grades recreational water quality in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council’s 2008 Guidelines for managing risks in recreational waters. Long-term testing is being conducted to measure the impact of pollution sources at swimming sites and highlight areas of poor water quality and where further investigation is needed.
Rose Bay and Terrigal beaches are routinely graded as ‘Poor’ in the Beachwatch program’s State of the Beaches report.
Beachwatch program monitoring is not comprehensive enough to show the scale or extent of the water quality problem, or the source of microbial contamination. To discover this, a more comprehensive audit is needed.
We worked with Woollahra Municipal Council, Sydney Water and Central Coast Council to investigate and report on the extent and source of poor recreational water quality issues in these areas to ensure the right solutions are delivered.
See Rose Bay water quality audit and Terrigal water quality audit.