NI Water Welcomes Good Results of Blue Flag Awards

29 May 2014 11:17

NI Water welcomes the news that eight beaches and two marinas in Northern Ireland have been awarded the prestigious Blue Flag by Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful.    
 
Angela Halpenny, Head of Environmental Regulation at NI Water said; “We are delighted to hear that eight beaches and two marinas have been awarded Blue Flag status this year.   

“While there are a number of criteria that must be set for a beach to achieve a Blue Flag, including beach cleanliness, signposting, lifeguards etc, water quality is also a key factor.  

“NI Water continues to prioritise investment in delivering quality improvements in conjunction the NIEA (NI Environment Agency) and the money we have spent to date is evident in the increased quality of our bathing water.  

“However, there are always going to be some elements outside of NI Water’s control, for example the wet weather, agricultural run-off and misconnections to the sewer network by private developers and householders.  

“NI Water has a major role to play in ensuring the quality of our water is the best it can be, but we will never achieve this on our own; it is a collective task that must be done in conjunction with other agencies and the public.”

NI Water runs an extensive ‘Dirty Dozen’ campaign to highlight the problems associated with flushing inappropriate items down the toilet.  The ‘Dirty Dozen’ are the 12 most common items people flush away instead of binning for example baby / face wipes.  A leaflet on the Dirty Dozen items can be found at http://www.niwater.com/siteFiles/resources/pdf/Leaflets/dirtydozen.pdf.