Water quality in South Florida `among best in US`

Water quality off two South Florida beaches is in the top ten for the nation, according to a national survey.

The annual natural resources defence council survey of American beaches found that Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach ranked ninth for water quality, despite Delray Beach authorities having only shut down the city’s sewage outfall - which discharged around nine million gallons of treated sewage a day.

Tom Ralph, co-chairman of the Broward County chapter of the Surfrider Foundation environmental group, said that bacteria levels still needed be monitored more frequently in order to give swimmers up-to-date information on beach water quality and enable them to plan when to avoid the water.

"We can do a better job at testing the water and getting quicker results," he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Elsewhere in the US, the national Environmental Protection Agency recently invested $1.7 million in improving water quality in the state of Illinois.