Press Release: 1999 Bathing Water Quality Report: improvement for fresh water bathing areas, but little change for coastal bathing waters

The European Commissioner for Environment, Margot Wallström presented on 30 May 2000 the latest report on bathing water quality in Europe during a special forum on implementation and enforcement of Community Environmental Law.

The 17th Bathing Water report covers 11,435 seaside beaches and 4,376 fresh water areas. More than 95% of the coastal bathing areas respect the minimum quality requirements. This is a marginal improvement compared with results in the previous report. Fresh water bathing areas show for the third consecutive year some encouraging results. While in 1996 1 out of 3 fresh water zones was insufficiently monitored or did not meet the minimum quality requirements, just above 90% of the fresh water bathing areas respected the minimum requirements of the Directive during the 1999 bathing season.

http://europa.eu.int/water/water-bathing/index_en.html http://europa.eu.int/water/water-bathing/index_en.html

---