The Kintyre Forum

This is a copy of a letter received today by the Task Force from A&B Council Environmental Health. The results for Dalintober Beach on May 17th were over twice the allowable limit for faecal coliforms. It would obviously not be advisable to allow children to use this beach until the sewerage situation is improved.


Seawater Sampling, Campbeltown Loch

I have now received the results of the bacteriological examination of seawater samples taken from Campbeltown Loch on 17th May 2006. The four sampling points are as follows;

Site 1: Marina pontoon
Site 2: Dalintober Beach
Site 3: Slipway at the New Quay
Site 4: Dhorlinn

The results of the samples were as follows;

Determination Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4
Total Coliforms per 100ml 100 4500 70 >10
E. coli per 100ml 30 3600 >10 >10
Faecal Streptococci per 100ml 10 70 >10 >10
Comment Satisfactory See note Satisfactory Satisfactory



Note: The analyst made the following comments in respect of the sample from site 2 (Dalintober Beach):

“The Bathing Waters (Classification) (Scotland) Regulations 1991 specify that faecal coliforms in a bathing water must not exceed 2000 colony –forming units per 100ml of water. The sample did not satisfy this requirement of the Regulations.”

I note that, at the time of sampling, the tide was high with an on-shore wind and the sample collected from Site 2 contained a large quantity of organic debris.

Further samples will be taken from these sites in mid-June.

Yours faithfully,

Patrick Mackie"

Does that mean that the beach will be cordoned off..or notices up...how you going to stop kids and animals from going there ?

What about the canoe and sailing club will they be informed?

And some of us are trying to organise a beach clean so I take it that should be put on hold .

Ewe! Deffo not a good place to paddle then.

The Task Force are having another meeting on 19th June which we hope SEPA, Scottish Water and the Council will attend. This will certainly be top of the agenda and if anyone has any suggestions please post them here and we will include them in our discussions.
We will raise again the topic of some warning signs and perhaps try and get something in the Courier so that hopefully all parents will be able to keep at least the younger children out of the water until the problem is sorted. The good news is that with Aquilibrium opening on 3rd July, there will be somewhere safe for the children to swim.

Just moving this into local news as I think it will be better highlighted in here.

Rather worrying when you see the number of people in or around the water in this area

Thanks Davie that will be better I think.

Just tonight 2 kids were playing about in the water(and its not as if its warm) and a couple of dogs,surely it must be a knockon effect with animals to their owners etc...........

The Task Force had word from the Council today that weekly testing of the water in the loch is to be undertaken. Also the matter of signs is being considered. If anyone has any input into where they would like to see signs please let us know.