EU: cleanest sea waters. Champions: Holland and Greece. Very good.

[Bereta_Eder]

http://www.europa.eu.int/water/water-bathing/report.html

[Bereta_Eder]

As temperatures soared across the
continent Thursday, the European Union head office said
that while the quality of the EU's coastal bathing waters
has steadily improved over the last decade, it fell
slightly in recent years.
Shining exceptions to that were Greece and the Netherlands
whose coastal bathing waters fully met European Union
quality norms in 2002, the European Commission reported.
Greek coastal waters posted near-100 percent compliance,
while the country's four inland bathing areas fully met EU
norms.

[Cruddy]

I was under the impression that Holland only had a couple of beaches, so improving the bathing their isn't much of an achievement. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, up the Greeks then! Mind you Paiktis, you're only encouraging all those loutish Brits to come and visit!

[Solly]

Yep, I mite hop down again..

[Bereta_Eder]

Ah why not. I like it when at summers Greece becomes sort of like the belly button of the world

[Az]

That's great. We, for example, have a great problem with this. OTOH, our air pollution situation seems to be better than in europe.

Do you people have acid rain? ( what are the PH readings for your rain? )

[Solly]

Piss in your sea etc..

[Bereta_Eder]

That would explain the near 100 compliance then...

Az nope, no acid rain. But there were a lot of problems with the oil refining that is happening in southeast Attika. You can swim there now without fear but in the past you risked a urinal infection or something Then the gov. implemented a biological cleaning program and the sea cleard. There are a lot of biological cleaning programs going on near industries. Athens remaines one of the heaviest polluted air capitals of Europe though. We recently were spared the last place in that list "thanks" to London dropping to the bottom...

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Azazel
That's great. We, for example, have a great problem with this. OTOH, our air pollution situation seems to be better than in europe.

Do you people have acid rain? ( what are the PH readings for your rain? )

Mostly wind is from the west, so all our pollution goes to places like Scandanavia and Germany.

If Ireland had 10 times the population and 15 times the power consumption we'd whinge like mad about it. But as it stands it's not as bad as those places to the east of us.

Air quality is always bad in cities, and as that's where most people live, most people have bad air quality.

EDIT: Mind you, thanks to us, the Irish Sea is the most radioactive stretch of water in the world. No wonder some call us "the dirty old man of Europe".

[Bereta_Eder]

It's a shame though for the big cities.

At least in London I think they implemented a drive to large parking lots and take mass transport to the city centre program?

[VetLegion]

EU: cleanest sea waters. Champions: Holland and Greece.

Only 'cause Croatia and Turkey aint in EU (yet)

[DaShi]

If there bath water is so clean, why to they sm. . .

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by paiktis22
It's a shame though for the big cities.

At least in London I think they implemented a drive to large parking lots and take mass transport to the city centre program?

The trouble with this approach is that buses & taxis run on diesel engines, and they are much more polluting than state of the art petrol/gasoline.

What has happened recently is a congestion charge - you get charged £5 everytime you drive through the centre of London in your non-polluting car. Instead you have to take a bus which coughs soot everywhere.

Of course, the money from this goes into public transport. If they had non-polluting public transport it would be a great idea - as it is they're just making things worse!

[Ecthy]

we had acid rain in the second half of the 80s

I remember leaving the house, noticing the smell and asking my father about it,, he'd tell it's acid rain

dunno if it was in end april 1986 or not... would have been only 2 years old then, not likely

on the other hand there wouldn't be any particular reason for acid rain, apart from a stinking power plant nearby. maybe that was the reason.

[Az]

on the other hand there wouldn't be any particular reason for acid rain, apart from a stinking power plant nearby. maybe that was the reason

You bet! It probably was a Sulfur-rich fossil fuel plant.

xH2O+ySO2--->zH2SO4.