Skerries gets its Blue Flag back

The Hill Billy

Skerries got its Blue Flag back today and picked up a Green Coast award too.

Well done to all involved & especially to David & Emily who founded the Adopt-a-Beach campaign.

sebcity

Explains why I couldn't see the flag while I walking down the beach on Saturday!

Dizzyblonde

That's great news

cbreeze

yabbadabbadoo!

LeoB

Great news for Skerries and well done to all who worked hard to get it back. Which beach was it got the flag?

However, I am really beginning to wonder how these things are awarded when beach's 500 meters apart you see one getting it and another not. Can anyone throw any light on it. Huge work has been done in Rush at each beach and while they sometimes get littered with beer cans they are generally in a very good state with a noticeable improvement over the last few years..

I was recently across from stoops and thought the beach was not in great condition at all. There was a woeful smell. I know the Skerries South beach is a lovely spot and great for a walk.

BrensBenz

LeoB wrote: »

However, I am really beginning to wonder how these things are awarded when beaches 500 meters apart you see one getting it and another not. Can anyone throw any light on it.

I've wondered about this too! I thought that water cleanliness was paramount, with general tidiness of the beach being an important "also ran".

Fair dues to the people, young and old, paid and unpaid, who give up their time and energy to keep the beaches tidy but I don't understand how the general public can have any significant impact on the cleanliness of seawater.

I may be wrong - I usually am - but how can a "local" contamination of seawater, anywhere from the West coast of Scotland to the North coast of France, remain local when we have a twice daily tidal flow from Scotland to France, spreading that contamination at approx. 7mph? How can some beaches be deemed clean while others nearby have an above limit reading?

Of course, our jagged coastline creates eddy currents which produce local phenomena and leave some areas dirtier than others. But that would be a fairly permanent condition, while we appear to have beaches gaining, loosing and regaining their blue flag status like traffic lights.

Variations in climate will encourage growth in some areas more than others but, surely, over a reasonable period, those variations would equalise?

How often are cleanliness readings taken? Daily? Monthly? Whenever we can? Are the results averaged out over, say, a year or do bad results merely accumulate like driving penalty points?

I'm sure there is a logical and complex method in use but, I have to say in my ignorance: it looks like a lottery to me!