Coastal water quality: CoCT introducing colour-coded info to make it easier to pick your swimming spot

The quality of water at Cape Town's various beaches and the accuracy of the methodology the City uses to determine this is a hot topic of debate among residents.

A recent meeting between the CoCT and public pressure group Bays of Sewage was 'positive', both sides reported.

Speaking to John Maytham this week, filmmaker Mark Jackson who is part of the group, raised his problem with the way in which the City makes its water testing data available to locals - relying on numbers and stats not easily understood by the average beachgoer.

RELATED: CoCT closely monitoring its marine sewage outfalls to meet water quality compliance measures

In a follow-up interview, Coastal Manager Gregg Oelofse says the team are set to simplify their weekly reports by switching to a system of colour-coding.

"We do follow the national water quality guidelines for coastal recreation as closely as we can, virtually to the letter...  Every year we calculate this on a 12-month running period for around 100 sites across the coastline, which we put on our website."

"Also, most importantly for the public, we publish an update on the actual data points for all of the sites EVERY WEEK."

Gregg Oelofse, Coastal Manager - CoCT

At the moment, these weekly updates appear in terms of raw data. 

This month, in the next week or so, the City will be switching to a colour-coded notification system, which means you'll be able to assess water quality of a specific site or beach at a glance. 

"We are going to make it that easy - it won't be according to the four categories we use (poor, sufficient, good or excellent) but simply green, amber or red."

Gregg Oelofse, Coastal Manager - CoCT

The green category would indicate the standard of below 240 bacteria per 100 mls of water, which means the City should just continue with surveillance and beachgoers can 'just continue to enjoy the coastline'.

A reading of over 240 would move the site into an amber category, and above 380 into the red category.

These are the three colour references which will reflect on the City's website soon.

"If it's green it's good; if it's amber it means there's been one single exceedance, and if it's red that means we would have articulated publicly that there is a health warning in place or if you get to that particular site you'll see pollution warning signs."

Gregg Oelofse, Coastal Manager - CoCT

Hear more detail in the interview audio at the top of the article