GEORGE NEWS - Lifeguards have been deployed at all our beaches and summer is rolling out its warm carpet, but George Municipality will have to wait a few days longer before they can hoist all three their Blue Flags at Wilderness, Victoria Bay and Herold's Bay.
The oil spill in Mossel Bay affected beaches all along the Southern Cape coastline, including those nearest to George.
Blue flags on the beaches at Victoria Bay and Wilderness had to be dropped on Wednesday 7 December, since oil spots were still present. Herold's Bay kept teams busy with the clean-up of droplets over the past week.
"These things take time, we believe everything will be over within a week," said Garden Route District Municipality disaster manager Gerhard Otto. "The spotting is few and far between. The natural breakdown of the substance is four to five days."
Colour coding is used to identify which beaches have been cleaned (green), and which still have hydrocarbon, low-sulphur oil droplets (orange). A Blue Flag will only be hoisted when a beach has been coded as green, thus completely free of oily spots.
Otto said they have made it a priority to finalise cleaning busier beaches, including Blue Flag beaches, as the holiday season approaches. "We are also meeting less frequently now as beaches return to normal. We will only meet at 14:00 on Thursday again."
Stringent criteria
At the ceremonial hoisting of the Blue Flag in Wilderness, in the parking area of Salina's Restaurant, Mayor Leon van Wyk said George Municipality is very proud and pleased that they are again Blue Flag approved.
"George went through the stringent criteria of receiving Blue Flag status and must do daily water testing, and make sure ablution facilities and safety on the beaches are top class to adhere to the strict guidelines and deliver a quality experience to our visitors," said Van Wyk.
Wilderness Beach and Herold's Bay both have full Blue Flag status and Victoria Bay has Pilot status for the 2022 festive season. The Blue Flag season runs from 1 December 2022 to 31 January 2023.
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