Heacham bathing waters

Overview

Bathing water designation

Bathing waters are designated at locations where an interest group or owner of a potential bathing water has applied to Defra and been successful in getting the water designated as a bathing water. That location will be tested by us during the bathing water season and given a classification. Designation does not necessarily mean that the site meets water quality standards or is safe to swim in.

Bathing water season

The Bathing Water Regulations 2013 set out the bathing water season, which runs from 15 May to 30 September inclusive each year. We are responsible for sampling for two types of bacteria at designated bathing waters during the season. Sampling must start just before the season and include some weekend and bank holiday samples, when the largest number of bathers are often present.

When and how we sample

The legislation dictates that we must set a sampling program before the beginning of the season and stick to it as much as possible, taking each water sample at 30cm depth after wading into one metre of water.  This sample must then be analysed within 4 hours of being taken, or within 24 hours if refrigerated (our vans are refrigerated).

The results are then available 2-5 days later as the bacteria have to be plated up and grown before being counted. There is a set protocol for the sampling, including sterile bottles and aseptic techniques.

What we sample for

We analyse samples by set protocol for Escherichia Coli (E.C) and Intestinal Enterococci (I.E), two bacteria found in the gut of many animals such as humans, birds, dogs, and seals. These are used as faecal indicator organisms for other pathogens such as viruses.

Classification of bathing water

The bathing water bacterial counts taken over the last 4 years (excluding 2020 as the number of samples taken were impacted by Covid) are put through a complicated calculation using log10 means and standard deviations, which is set out in the legislation.  The resulting figure is then compared with the table below to give the classification.

NB. If a beach is ‘poor’ for 5 years then it is de-designated.

Origin of the bacteria

I.E. and E.C. are often from the faeces of a human or other animal including birds, dogs, seals, cows and pigs. They can be washed in from various sources:

• roofs (bird faeces)
• pavements or roads through surface water systems during rainfall
• misconnections from homes or businesses into the surface water
• issues with overflowing sewers or consented overflows
• agricultural runoff
• washed in at high tide after being deposited on beaches by animals defaecating
• deposited directly into the sea by birds or seals

Rivers often run through both urban and agricultural areas, which can potentially affect water quality. There may also be combined sewer overflows, emergency overflows (from sewage pumping stations) and surface water outfalls within the river catchment that can adversely impact the water quality.

Where to find out more about bathing water quality

The Swimfo site Bathing water quality (data.gov.uk) contains lots of useful information about bathing water quality – you can see all the data through the years with maps and details of investigations. If there is a known relevant ongoing pollution incident this will also be flagged on this site.

Pollution Risk Forecasting

There are some bathing waters in England where we know water quality can be affected by factors such as rain, tide, or wind that we can measure and use to make a daily forecast of quality.

At these sites, we make active water quality forecasts called Pollution Risk Forecasts (PRF) if factors that have previously been associated with reduced quality re-occur. This warns the public of a risk of reduced water quality to give an informed choice of where and when to bathe. It is not warning of an actual pollution incident occurring.

It is important to recognise these forecasts are not absolute and that these are just a means to flag higher risk days than the annual classification average. 

We make PRFs each day at 08:30 and post on Swimfo shortly afterwards. These are our best estimate of the risk, specific to each bathing water for that day.

In summary, we expect people to make their own decisions on what is an acceptable risk to them and will provide PRFs to help them make this decision. Additional information can be found at Swim healthy - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Heacham bathing water area

Why is Heacham water quality poor?

We have been investigating why the current classification for Heacham is poor. Our focus is on identifying and minimising the human impacts to the environment such as from sewage releases and agricultural run-off.

Sources of contamination currently being considered include:

• issues associated with urban drainage
• agricultural activities
• sediment harbouring bacteria (both along inland watercourses and in The Wash)
• the large numbers of wild birds and seals that use the area

The Wash, the largest estuarine system in the UK, is recognised as an internationally important site for waders and wildfowl under the Ramsar Convention. In winter, as well as during the spring and autumn migration, it hosts hundreds of thousands of shorebirds. These species are part of the natural ecosystem and need to be protected; although they contribute to faecal matter in the estuary, we focus on human discharges and those associated with human activities.

We are also considering the possibility that sandbar movement in The Wash has changed the flow of water over the last few years and may be preventing any bacteria from being ‘flushed out’ to sea.

What we are doing to improve the water quality at Heacham

We are working with the council, Anglian Water, and other stakeholders on actions to identify and then reduce any sources. This is quite a complex task as there is no one clear source at Heacham. The responsibility and powers to resolve different sources lies with various organisations and authorities.

To aid our investigations into the reason for Poor Water Quality at Heacham, we secured additional funding to carry out extra DNA analysis on selected samples that were taken during the 2023 bathing water season. This will help us understand the sources such as dog, bird, human but is not a simple task and is not routinely carried out as it is extremely expensive. However, we are committed to determining all inputs that are negatively impacting the water quality. Bathing water samples in the ’24 season will be filtered and stored for MST/DNA analysis in the future, should funding become available.

We have an agricultural regulatory officer visiting farms in the local area to check compliance with environmental legislation. We have two agricultural visits to undertake this season; once those are done, all farm visits in the Heacham catchment will be complete.

We are providing advice to homes not on the mains sewer and conducted pollution prevention visits during 2023 to multiple properties not on mains drainage. This is to ensure that everyone is aware of the appropriate legal disposal routes for sewage and how they can best maintain their own sewage system.

During 2023 we took additional monthly bacterial samples from parts of the Heacham River to try and identify which part, if any, of the river has the most bacteria which we used to identify follow-up work.

We have been looking at sewers, agricultural land, other consented discharges, weather impacts, other monitoring data in the area and pollution incidents reported to us.

We will continue to investigate any possible sources reported to us and will be revisiting in the summer to retake bacterial samples upstream of the waste water treatment works as part of our ongoing work.