Temporary Do Not Swim Prohibition Notice at Front Strand Beach Balbriggan to remain in place
Update June 25th: Temporary Do Not Swim Prohibition Notice at Front Strand Beach Balbriggan to remain in place for 8 days until as mitigation work complete - but results of sample on June 22nd gives result of 'good'
Update June 25th: Temporary Do Not Swim Prohibition Notice at Front Strand Beach Balbriggan to remain in place for 8 days until mitigation work complete - but results of sample on June 22nd gives result of 'good'
see details:
Bathing Water Quality Results received today from re-sample taken at Front Strand Beach, Balbriggan on Thursday (22/6/2023) are as follows;
Front Strand Beach, Balbriggan met the standard for "Good" water quality (E Coli 288MPN/100ml Intestinal Enterococci 95CFU/100ml).
The HSE agreed that the Temporary Bathing Prohibition Notice at Front Strand Beach, Balbriggan should remain in place until some mitigation work on the surface water line serving Mill Street is complete and a further re-sample is taken.
This mitigation work is expected to be completed next week, when a further re-sample will be taken.
The next scheduled Bathing Water Sampling dates are; 26th June 2023 (Balbriggan to Portrane) and 27th June 2023 (Donabate to Claremont).
The Temporary Do Not Swim Prohibition Notice at Front Strand Beach Balbriggan was extended for 7 days from June 20th. This was due to elevated bacterial results in seawater in testing carried out on 12 June 2023. Likely cause: Water quality deteriorated due to suspected impacts from animals/birds and contamination of urban surface waters discharging into bathing water.
An end of incident sample to be arranged and then the prohibition will be reviewed and a Notice will be circulated/erected at beach noticeboard.
Front Strand remains open but beach users are asked to respect the ‘Do Not Swim’ notice as it has been put in place to ensure that the health of bathers is not compromised.
Members of the public can check for water quality at any of the monitored bathing waters in Ireland in advance by accessing the EPA website at www.beaches.ie or by checking the notice board at the entrance to each beach.
To view an explanation of the standards used for reporting results of bathing water please go to https://www.fingal.ie/bathing-water-quality-monitoring-faqs
Bathing Water Quality results from samples collected on 12th June, 2023
All the following identified bathing waters met the standard for “excellent” water quality;
Loughshinny beach
Rush South beach
The Brook beach, Portrane
Balcarrick beach, Donabate
Velvet Strand beach, Portmarnock
The Burrow beach, Sutton – Prohibition (Do not swim) Notice was in place since 13/6/23 – end of incident sample arranged for 15/6/23 and results were excellent and Notice was lifted June 17th
The non-identified bathing water at Malahide Beach also met the standard for “excellent” water quality.
Three beaches met the standard for “good” water quality;
Claremont beach, Howth, North beach, Rush* and South Strand, Skerries* (* resamples arranged 15/6/23)
Front Strand beach, Balbriggan met the standard for “poor” water quality and an investigation is underway. A Prohibition (Do not Swim) Notice will now replace the All Season Advisory notice
The next scheduled sample will be taken on June 26th with results available on June 28th and testing will continue every 2 weeks until the end of the bathing season in September.
For further information on beaches and bathing water see Beaches and Bathing Water
For information on Lifeguards this week see Lifeguards Provision
Members of the public can check for water quality at any of the monitored bathing waters in Ireland in advance by accessing the EPA website at www.beaches.ie or by checking the notice board at the entrance to each beach.
To view an explanation of the standards used for reporting results of bathing water please go to https://www.fingal.ie/bathing-water-quality-monitoring-faqs