The City of Cape Town has established the ‘Project Blue’ report that falsely claims to have used SANAS-accredited laboratories to analyse coastal water quality data. None of the two laboratories used are in fact SANAS accredited for analysing E. coli or enterococci in seawater.
Project Blue report was acknowledged by the authors to be ‘very limited’ and does not contain any scientific references to back up its claims.
Reportedly, Cape Town conducts the most extensive water sampling of South Africa for any coastal city with popular beaches that shows consistent high-water quality over the festive season.
In total 297 water samples were taken from the designated swimming areas across the 30 most popular coastal recreational nodes of the city which were a full 100% within the recreational use thresholds over the festive season.
As per the sources, it is based on enterococci counts which is internationally recognised as a gold standard indicator for coastal water quality in terms of associated risk to human health. All water samples underwent through independent analysis that were conducted by a laboratory which is SANAS accredited for microbiological analysis for sea water.
SANAS gives accreditation to a laboratory means that it has been officially verified as competent to perform specific analyses and the tests with methodologies that were used and verified independently to be accurate and consistent.
Notably, small number of samples were published in the Project Blue report, for which two laboratories were used, one for seawater samples on the Atlantic and the second one for False Bay. In the report, the authors clearly stated that the laboratories used to test the sea water samples are both SANAS accredited.
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Spatial Planning and Environment – Alderman Eddie Andrews said that the SANAS accredited lab independently analysed hundreds of samples across the Cape Town and its most popular beaches this festive season.
Moreover, Blue Flag beaches of Cape Town are also subjected to additional water sampling by a second sea water SANAS that were accredited laboratories under the auspices of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA). This independently confers Blue Flag status on South African beaches that further provides assurance on water quality to the public.
According to Andrews, it is of great concern that the Project Blue report incorrectly attributes SANAS accreditation to its results. It is used to cast aspersions on water quality data from two laboratories that are in fact SANAS accredited for microbiological analyses of seawater samples.
At best, this is a major oversight by the three academics that were named in Project Blue Report or at worst, it is a major misrepresentation of the facts with the intent to mislead the public. Comparing it at far greater volumes of scientifically credible data have affirmed the city as a world-class coastal tourism destination.
The results are published on the online Summer Dashboard of City of Cape Town to inform the public about water quality patterns at their favourite beaches this festive season. It has taken few days to analyse water samples and the data cannot give a real-time indication of water quality.
Furthermore, the trends over-time gave an indication of risk levels for the public to make more informed decisions. This is why the City of Cape Town has conducted such an extensive sampling throughout the year and makes the data available to the public.
City of Cape Town has never claimed any coastal area to be completely risk-free. It has also published the water quality results that are shown to be excellent as aligned to National Water Quality Guidelines. This states an excellent as a less than 2.8% risk and not as a zero risk.
Project Blue claimed lack of scientific references, that states facts without any citation of scientific literature that over the last decade has been realised and have determined only one of the two organisms that causes an underestimation of risks. The officials recommended that both the organisms should be used in all testing.
The statement is in direct conflict with most international and national guidelines for marine water quality assessment included by the World Health Organisation which states (WHO 2003), “Escherichia coli intrinsically suitable for fresh waters but not marine waters.”
According to the stamen (WHO 2021) that no statistical relationship has been established for E. coli that can support a clear dose-response guideline value in marine waters. It supports only intestinal enterococci as a faecal indicator in seawater sampling.
Similarly, the statements are contained in the guidelines issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA 2012), Health Canada (2024), New Zealand Ministry of Health (2021) and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (2008).
Alderman Eddie Andrews also stated that the City of Cape Town has constantly based its decision-making on available evidence and scientific consensus on all the matters as the same should be expected of critics and especially for those that consider themselves professional scientists.
The dedicated professionals will continue to apply the currently accepted standards worldwide for coastal water that analysis enterococci as an indicator of sewage pollution and associated human health risk.