Bega Valley Shire Council issued an update today on water quality testing at the Pambula Rivermouth following the Beachwatch results issued on Friday, January 24 which showed the rivermouth to be unsuitable for swimming.
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Council’s manager for health and building services, Jeff Tipping said: “Following last week’s Beachwatch results indicating above average levels of enterococci colony forming units at the Pambula Rivermouth, we have tested again and are pleased to confirm that it is now suitable to swim in the area.”
Last week’s result returned a poor rating for the rivermouth with enterococci colony forming units being in the range of 201 – 500 per 100ml of water which rated it as unsuitable for swimming and council advised everyone to use open beaches such as Pambula Beach or Lions Park until further tests were made.
The latest result has returned a ‘Fair’ rating, meaning that enterococci colony forming units are now between 41-200 (CFU) per 100ml of water.
Since the start of the 2013/14 sampling run, the site has returned ‘Good’ results (<40cfu/100ml) in all weeks except last week.
Enterococcus is a bacteria that lives in the bowels of most humans. The bacteria may cause an infection if it gets into particularly, blood, wounds or urine.
Mr Tipping said: “We are conducting an investigation into what has caused the spike in enterococci colony forming units. As part of our investigation we can confirm that there has been no reported sewer spills from council owned facilities.”
He added that council would continue to inform the community of any developments.