Greece's waters of 'excellent quality'

"The quality of water in Greece's seas and lakes is known and constitutes a competitive advantage of the country," Alternate Environment Minister Yiannis Tsironis said.

From the 1540 bathing waters, 1518 were assessed, as 22 points were monitored for the first time in 2014. The new points have not been evaluated for 2014 since the minimum number of samples required by the Directive has not yet been collected. However, from the initial results of 2014 it is evident that the concentrations of microbiological parameters remain below the respective criteria values of excellent quality. For the remaining 1518 bathing waters, the classification results are the following report:

• - 1495 bathing waters are classified as "excellent quality". One of them are located in inland waters and the 1494 in coastal waters.
• - 23 bathing waters are classified as "good quality", one of which is located in inland waters and 22 in coastal waters.
• - None of bathing waters was classified as "sufficient quality".
• - None of bathing waters was classified as "poor quality".

     "It is everyone's care and obligation - the state and the citizens - to continuously protect our seas and coasts in the best possible way. It is up to us to maintain the quality of our waters forever," Tsironis added.

Bathing water quality for the year 2014 was monitored and assessed in the framework of the Monitoring Programme of Bathing Water Quality that was implemented under the supervision of the Special Secretariat for Water of the Ministry of Reconstruction of production, Environment and Energy.

ANA/MPA