When a 6-year-old girl died of polio after swimming at a sewage-contaminated beach, her grieving parents sparked a campaign that would leave a lasting public legacy

Caroline Wakefield died within days of contracting water-borne polio in the Summer of 1957. Feeling compelled to warn other parents of the dangers that loomed at the seaside, her parents, Tony and Daphne, published The Golden List of British Beaches.

The pioneering document evolved into the Good Beach Guide, now published by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) and grades beaches in the UK, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

Along with other clean sea campaigns, it led to huge investment by the water industry to treat raw sewage and helped push for the adoption of the European Bathing Water Directive, which commits EU countries to achieve good standards for all designated bathing waters.

So what's changed?
Bathing water quality has improved significantly since the 1990s. Species diversity in estuaries is increasing and fish stocks are improving too, according to a major 2010 Government report into the state of the UK’s seas.

And the 2012 Good Beach Guide, which analyses 2011 data, also looks promising: 516 of the 754 bathing beaches listed were awarded the highest rating of ‘MCS Recommended’, that’s 68%, as having excellent water quality – up 8% on last year. That compares with 2010, when it rated 421 of 769 beaches as ‘MCS Recommended’.

In Northern Ireland 22 of 23 beaches were listed as having good water quality, with 16 rated as excellent. And in the RoI 83% of bathing waters were graded as good.

Despite these great strides, water quality is still reduced by litter, such as balloons and dog excrement left in bags, and more headline-grabbing incidents – such as in 2011 when 20 barrels of vacuum gas oil escaped from Esso's Fawley terminal.

But the biggest problem for both the K and RoI comes during heavy rains when sewers can overflow and allow untreated waste into rivers and the sea.

According to Andy Cummins, spokesman for campaign group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), health risks for people surfing and bathing in sewage-polluted waters can include gastroenteritis, E coli, hepatitis A, and meningitis.

Last year, one-third of the beaches the environmental regulators tested failed on water quality, due to contamination from overflowing sewers and run-off from agricultural land, houses, industry and streets. Dog waste in particular presents a major problem.

This Summer's heavy rain has meant 21 more beaches have failed to meet the minimum standard set by the current bathing water directive compared with 11 last year. The recent floods will also have a knock-on effect on river and coastal water quality.

The problem of sewers overflowing in heavy rains is echoed on the River Thames, according to Emma Barton (above), Marine Advisor at the Environment Agency.

The river has shrugged off the ‘biologically dead’ label it once bore in the 1950s and is now teeming with fish as a result of work done with farmers, businesses and water companies.

However, overflowing sewers mean the Thames now has the worst sewage pollution problem in the UK, Emma says. The 28-year-old, who also volunteers at RNLI Tower Lifeboat Station, says overflows can also have grisly consequences with faeces, toilet paper, wipes, sanitary products and other items including hypodermic needles getting washed up.

Jess Terrell, Water Safety Officer at the London Rowing Club, says on occasions when sewers overflow most teams wear wellies when boating.

Raw sewage entering the tidal Thames contains harmful bacteria causing a risk to people who use the river – something comedian David Walliams discovered when he contracted ‘Thames Tummy’ swimming the river for charity in 2011.

And it’s not just sewers that can impact on water quality of rivers; it’s also the species we love to hate: rats.

In 2010, former Olympic rowing champion Andy Holmes, who twice partnered Sir Steve Redgrave to a Gold Medal, died after contracting Weils disease. The rare water-borne infection, also called Leptospirosis, is caught through contact with infected animal urine, mainly from rodents, cattle or pigs.

It is an issue British Rowing takes seriously, offering advice to clubs throughout the country to be aware of safe practice, such as not drinking the river water and taking showers after contact with the water.

Is there an impact on the RNLI's work?
Operationally, poor water quality does not affect the types of rescues the RNLI goes out on: saving lives is priority whether there is pollution or not.

However it is something the RNLI considers throughout its business. Lifeboat crew on the Thames must wear the right kit for the situations they come across, such as drysuits and heavy-duty boots and wash them afterwards.

Janet Kelly, Station Manager at Tower Lifeboat Station, says rubbish can also be sucked up into the waterjets on the lifeboats causing blockages.

‘It can be a real issue for us as, if we have to clear out the rubbish, it costs us time. On a rescue, where a life is at stake, seconds count,’ she says.

Lifeboats on the Thames can also be called out to help when rubbish is sucked into a boat’s cooling system, leaving it disabled. Peter Chennell, RNLI Marine Safety Operations Manager, says that while lifeboats are built to save lives at sea and not specifically to respond to pollution incidents, they can help prevent environmental disasters.

The brave volunteer RNLI lifeboat crew from Mallaig, Scotland, are a case in point: they battled 50mph winds for 11 hours in November 2010, to stop Red Duchess, a 76m 2,500-ton coaster carrying coal, from crashing onto the island of Rum, breaking up and spilling its load. In doing so they saved six lives and prevented a major environmental catastrophe.

When torrential rain causes streets to flood, the water can be contaminated with sewage, animal waste and other waste from drains or the surrounding areas.

According to the Health Protection Agency, the general risk to health is low. But RNLI Flood Response Manager Robin Goodlad says that flood rescue volunteers – such as those that rescued people from flooded homes in Stockton-on-Tees this September and St Asaph in November – undergo a decontamination procedure afterwards.

And volunteers who help with international flood rescue incidents must ensure they get the appropriate jabs, such as for hepatitis C and B, to protect them from any water-borne infections.

Most significantly, the RNLI is widely seen as the eyes and ears for rivers and the coastline and will report pollution when an incident is identified.

As Emma Barton points out: 'We all have a part to play in the health of our waters – that’s everyone from the Government, to the Environment Agency, water companies, local authorities, industries, communities and individuals.'

So what will the future look like?
Dr Robert Keirle, Pollution Programme Manager at the MCS, says water quality on the coast could deteriorate in the future as climate change could cause more heavy downpours of rain to wash more livestock waste off fields and cause sewers to overflow more often.

However, there is hope that the Water Framework Directive and the revised Bathing Water Directive standards, which will come into full force in 2015, will drive positive change for coastal and inland waters.

Beaches that consistently fail to meet the new standards will have signs erected advising beach goers not to bathe. To prevent this from happening, environmental regulators and water companies will need to identify solutions.

Thames Water is also proposing London Tideway Tunnels, better known as the controversial ‘super sewer’, as the solution to the problem of overflowing sewers into the river.

Significant changes have been made to water quality since the Wakefields redefined what was acceptable over 50 years ago. And while there is still work to be done, the couple’s tragic story has helped create a legacy of awareness and activism that will hopefully lead us to a cleaner future.

HOW IS WATER QUALITY ASSESSED?

Every Summer, water quality is assessed roughly every week at the UK’s popular beaches by the relevant environmental and local authorities through a series of tests for bacteria, which can indicate sewage and/or animal waste.

The MCS Good Beach Guide uses all available water quality data from the previous Summer, along with information about the treatment of sewage discharges to recommend bathing beaches that had excellent water quality and are not affected by insufficiently treated, continuous sewage discharges, which is their gold standard for excellent water quality.

Beaches are graded as either:
• MCS Recommended – for good water quality and sufficient sewage treatment
• Guideline – for good water quality
• Basic – when the water has passed the EU statutory minimum
• Fail.

For the last 20 years, the Environment Agency has used a general quality assessment scheme to assess river water quality in terms of chemistry, biology and nutrients.

The 2015 European Water
Framework Directive has a more sophisticated method of assessing the ecological environment as well as chemistry. First objectives must be met in 2015.

KNOW YOUR FLAGS

A red flag on a beach is synonymous with danger; it means you should never enter the water under any circumstances.

But why are they erected? As Lifeguard Supervisor Drustan Ward says, it might not always be what you expect: ‘People don’t often realise that a red flag can not only indicate dangerous tides and rip currents, but it can also warn of electrial storms – and pollution.’

At the opposite end of the spectrum, a blue flag indicates a beach that has achieved the highest quality in water facilities, safety, environmental education and management.

The Blue Flag Programme is an international award scheme, overseen in England by Keep Britain Tidy and managed internationally by the Foundation for Environmental Education.

From 2013, Blue Flag beaches will have to provide warnings to beach users when nearby sewer overflows discharge, if that discharge could temporarily affect the bathing water quality.