Environment Minister Matt Kean was pleased to release the annual State of the Beaches report which has returned great results for beaches across the NSW.
\nMinister Kean said 2019 is one of the cleanest years of recreational water quality on record since monitoring began in 1989.
\n\u201cClean beaches are great news for the community and encourage more people to get out and about as we head into the start of the swimming season,\u201d Mr Kean said.
\n\u201cThis year, 86 per cent of the State\u2019s swimming sites are rated \u2018very good\u2019 or \u2018good\u2019 which is a significant achievement and great news as we head into beach season.
\n\u201cEstuarine swimming sites have never been this clean, with a record breaking 82 per cent listed as \u2018very good\u2019 or \u2018good\u2019.
\n\u201cThis is in addition to the 98 per cent of ocean beaches shown to be clean and safe, as were four of the five ocean baths.\u201d
\nMr Kean said that while these figures are welcome, they also show there is still work to do.
\nAccording to the report, coastal lakes, lagoons and estuarine swimming spots were adversely affected by heavy rain, with the number of clean lake and lagoon swimming sites declining.
\nLower levels of flushing in coastal lakes, lagoons and estuaries means these swimming sites take longer to recover from stormwater events.
\nThe NSW Government committed $500,000 to address water quality at Terrigal Beach and surrounding lagoons, and $200,000 to establish an expert panel to determine the best way to improve water quality in Tuggerah Lakes.
\n\u201cTerrigal Beach has already shown signs of improvement, having been upgraded to good, from a poor grade last year, which clearly demonstrates the NSW Government\u2019s commitment to improving the environment,\u201d Mr Kean said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Environment Minister Matt Kean was pleased to release the annual State of the Beaches report which has returned great results for beaches across the NSW. Minister Kean said 2019 is one of the cleanest years of recreational water quality on record since monitoring began in 1989. \u201cClean beaches are great news for the community and … Continue reading “2019 A GREAT YEAR FOR CLEAN BEACHES”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}