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Water quality is monitored weekly at popular swimming and other recreational watersport locations in Tasman District each summer from late November to early March. Over twenty sites are sampled over one summer and then following summer we sample only the three most popular beaches (Kaiteriteri, Mapua and Rabbit Island) but also carry out detailed investigations to find the source(s) of pollution at sites where there have been problems. The sampling regime in the 2008-09 summer is the latter, but we have added a site at Motueka because there are some pressing concerns about that site. About a third of all the swimming holes monitored are in rivers and the remaining are at coastal beaches.
How do we test swimming water quality? At coastal locations we sample for Enterococci (per 100ml), and at river locations we sample for E.coli (per 100ml). National guidelines dictate the permitted levels as described below.
We use national protocols for monitoring. Further information about why and how sampling is carried out is available from the Ministry for the Environment
How to interpret the results 
 Summer 2007/08 Recreational Water Quality Sampling Programme (1900 K)
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