By Pete Harrison
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Polluted floodwaters and overflowing sewers helped push British beaches further down the European Union's rankings for a second year running on Thursday, but most other EU countries improved bathing water quality.
"The UK had one of the wettest summers on record," said Tom Bell, UK coastal pollution officer at the Marine Conservation Society.
"Waters suffered from a mixture of floodwater and sewage from storm overflows and run-off from agriculture carrying animal waste, fertilizers and some petrochemicals," he said by mobile phone en route to a sewer inspection in Wales.
Waters met minimum standards at 96 percent of EU beaches during last year's bathing season and 92 percent of bathing sites in rivers and lakes, up on the previous year by 1.1 and 3.3 percentage points respectively.
But tests for pollutants and microbes, such as fecal bacteria and intestinal viruses, saw British beaches slip below the EU average, with 95.5 percent compliance.
Only in Britain and Ireland did compliance slip for both the minimum standards and the tougher guidelines based on the EU's Bathing Water Directive.
"Predictions for climate change suggest our summers will be punctuated with increasing heavy storms," said Bell. "If Britain doesn't put in the infrastructure, then water quality is going to get worse."
Last month, the Marine Conservation Society reported that the number of beaches failing the minimum standards jumped 50 percent to 78. Many were on the rainswept Atlantic coasts of Devon and Cornwall.
ROMANIA IMPROVES
Elsewhere in Europe, Romania made the biggest improvement with 98 percent compliance, against 20 percent of beaches that missed the grade last year.
All beaches in the Netherlands met minimum standards for the fourth year running, while Greece and Cyprus also ranked highly.
"I am pleased to see that the overall quality of water in bathing areas is improving throughout the Union," European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.
Some 88.6 percent of EU beaches complied with the tougher guidelines in 2008, up 2.5 percent on 2007.
Cyprus had the highest percentage of bathing waters meeting those highest standards with 98.2 percent, followed by Greece with 97.7 percent and France with 96.3 percent.
Only Belgium and Poland had a greater proportion of non-compliant bathing waters than Britain, 10.3 percent and 14.4 percent respectively, but the situation in both countries was improving rather than worsening.
(Reporting by Pete Harrison; Editing by Charles Dick)
