Adelaide

Adelaide’s Polluted Beaches

Adelaide’s metropolitan beaches are suffering from the worst water pollution they have seen in many years. According to the article “Adelaide’s beaches a polluted casualty of the city’s festival season” by Malcom Sutton, water pollution is a major problem in the west of Adelaide where over the summer five beach pollution alerts were issued and warnings were put up to warn swimmers not to get into the water as a brown strip of water was formed at West beach. The brown strip stretched over to Henley beach which is 2 kilometers away and over to Grange which is a further two kilometers away. A grange resident described the water as “stinky, brown and disgusting.”

Several hot spells and a breaking heatwave which caused an outbreak of toxic blue green algae in Torrens Lake, in the city’s CBD. “Freshwater was released from upstream into the lake to break-up the algae, twice in December, and once during January and February, and the water was flushed downstream.” (Sutton, 2016)

With several public events which included festival season, cricket and the Tour Down Under, Kym Good from the Natural Resources Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Board (NRAMLR) said "the economic benefit of a healthy lake could not be overstated". "It's vital that visitors enjoy a genuinely positive experience and the lake being open and available for recreational use contributes to that”. (Sutton, 2016)

Peter Coombes, Professor of Water Resources at Victoria's Swinburne University, author of revised guidelines for the Australian Rainfall and Run-off project, a national guideline on flood estimates used to assess infrastructure requirements said “pollution at Adelaide's western beaches had been a "recurring problem" for years due to 19th century engineering designed to remove storm water from urban areas as quickly as possible.” (Sutton, 2016)

Water covers over two thirds of the surface of the Earth. As humans continue to poulate the planet’s water resources are...