A shallow stream cherished by generations of Taranaki children has been branded the country’s grubbiest swimming spot.

Waimoku Stream at Oakura Beach was the only site in New Zealand that failed to meet health guidelines for bacteria every time it was tested during the past two summers.

Three hundred popular swimming sites are tested weekly by councils in summer to check if they are under the E. coli threshold.

E. coli, which comes from faeces, can cause infection, diarrhoea and vomiting.

Waimoku, the stream that runs over Oakura Beach near the campground, never tested below the 550 E. coli per 100 millilitres of water level, meaning it was never deemed safe enough to swim in.

However, thousands of children play in the Waimoku each summer as it pools on the beach and creates a safe, shallow and warm area for families.

Oakura locals were shocked at the news yesterday.

New Plymouth Old Boys Surf Life Saving Club chairman Noot Barrett said the findings were pretty disturbing.

“We often have the kids playing in there, getting water confident, it ponds right along to the surf club,” he said.

“I think we need some more information, to know if we need to stop our kids from swimming there or if we need to put up signs.”

Oakura Beach Holiday Park manager Shelley Ludeke said there should be a sign up to stop people swimming there.

“It’s shocking. Over summer time there’s hundreds of people that swim in there. And it’s a blue flag beach.”

Taranaki Regional Council environment director Gary Bedford, who oversees the monitoring of the stream and provided the information to the Ministry for the Environment, was not surprised by the news.

“It’s a grubby little stream. We’ve been monitoring it for 10 years or more,” Mr Bedford said.

He brushed aside speculation that the bacteria might come from septic tanks or dairying, instead finding a much simpler explanation.

“It’s because of all the birds. The geese, the ducks and the pukeko that live below the main highway. We have the same problem at Lake Rotomanu,” he said.

“If we want to clean it up we’ll have to go up there with a shotgun.”

Mr Bedford said if the public wanted to know E. coli levels at any time, the results from each test were posted on the council’s website.

Health warnings such as signs were the jurisdiction of the district health board and New Plymouth District Council, Mr Bedford said.

District council park programmes manager Steve McGill said the council would put up signs if asked by the health board.

“We can’t put up or remove signs without the district health board.

“We very occasionally put signs up at Waimoku.”

Mr McGill said one option could be to get the digger out and let the pond out to sea, but that had never been done before for E. coli.

Ad Feedback Out of the 300 spots tested across the country for bacteria, just 58 per cent were suitable for swimming almost all of the time.

The rest had too much faecal matter in the water at least 5 per cent of the time.

Northland had the most spots eight out of 20 that were consistently too polluted to swim in.

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