Gold star results for Northern Beaches’ swimming spots

Swimming spots on the Northern Beaches have been given the cleanest results on record in the 2019-2020 State of the Beaches report as prepared by the NSW Government’s Beachwatch program.

100% of the ocean beaches, estuarine beaches and lake/lagoon swimming sites on the Beaches received a grade of Good or Very Good.

This was an improvement on the previous year’s results from 97% of sites graded as Good or Very Good in 2018-2019.

The best beaches included Palm Beach, Whale Beach, Avalon Beach, Bilgola Beach, Newport Beach, Bungan Beach, Dee Why Beach, South Curl Curl Beach, Elvina Bay, The Basin and Great Mackerel Beach.

These sites had excellent water quality and were suitable for swimming almost all of the time.

With rainfall being the major driver impacting recreational water quality, the Beachwatch program is designed to capture wet and dry conditions.

During dry conditions, water quality in all locations is suitable for swimming.

Beachwatch recommend that you avoid swimming during and at least one day after heavy rain at ocean beaches, and for up to three days at estuarine swimming areas.

As estuarine and lagoon swimming sites take longer to recover from stormwater inputs due to lower levels of flushing, and as a result don’t perform as well as ocean beaches.

The State of the Beaches report provides an overview of the water quality at 228 swimming locations monitored under the Beachwatch and Beachwatch Partnership programs across NSW.

The Beachwatch program started in 1989 in response to community concern about sewage pollution washing up on Sydney’s beaches.

Check out the full report for more information.