The Department of Information yesterday moved to clarify some issues raised by the local media on an EU report on the quality of bathing water in Malta, pointing out that a number of sites were not monitored because Mepa had erroneously interpreted the EU directive.

However, it insisted that Malta’s beaches were fit for bathing.

“Although the EU Bathing Water Quality Report does not give a good classification for Malta, the public has to be correctly informed that in view of safety, our bathing areas were fit for bathing during the bathing season 2005, based on the microbiological quality,” the DOI said.

The report, published last Friday, said that of the 87 sites that should have been monitored, 46 had not. The report is also critical of Malta’s conformity with the parameters established by the EU for bathing water.

The DOI said that the Directive 76/160/EEC concerning the quality of bathing water required that member states carry out a monitoring programme during the official bathing season at all official bathing sites as identified by the respective member state.

“The EU Bathing Water Classification Report is based on five parameters, i.e. total coliforms, faecal coliforms, mineral oils, surface-active substances and phenols and the minimum frequency of monitoring for these five parameters is fortnightly,” the DOI said.

It added that “for each monitoring site to classify with the requirements of the directive, all five parameters have to be monitored at the minimum frequency otherwise the specific site will be classified as either insufficiently monitored (if any of the parameters had not been monitored for during the whole bathing season) or non-conforming (if any of the parameters had not been monitored for at the required minimum frequency or the results would have failed with the recommended mandatory values specified by the directive).”

The DOI said that during the bathing season 2005, the Public Health Department carried out the required monitoring for the two required microbiological parameters at the recommended minimum frequency at all 87 sites (for the faecal coliform parameter, all 87 sites have been monitored on a weekly basis i.e. double the required minimum frequency under the directive).

“If we had to classify the bathing water quality on the microbiological parameters only, Malta would have had its entire 87 sites conforming to the mandatory values (100 per cent conformity) and 74 sites (85 per cent) also conforming to the guide values.”

With the three physico-chemical parameters which mainly require a visual inspection on site, Mepa has, through an erroneous interpretation of the directive, failed to monitor 46 sites (implementing a provision under the directive of reduced frequency which the new member states may only adopt this provision after submitting three consecutive years of data to the DG Environment), and thus these sites although being in conformity for the microbiological parameters, would still be administratively classified as insufficiently monitored.

For the six sites classified in the EU Bathing Water Report as non-conforming, this was due to the fact that although these sites were eventually monitored for the required three physico-chemical parameters, they were not monitored to the required minimum frequency and thus they have been classified as non-conforming.

Mepa has now made the necessary arrangements to monitor all 87 sites for all three physico-chemical parameters at the required minimum frequency for the present bathing season.