Strand and deliver

Portstewart has lost its blue flag and feels threatened by a wind farm. Locals want the mess sorted out, writes Nuala Haughey.

It was a view from Portstewart strand that inspired Jimmy Kennedy, the late Northern Ireland-born lyricist, to write Red Sails In The Sunset. The Co Derry town is justifiably proud that the songwriter, whose other hits included Teddy Bears' Picnic and The Hokey Cokey, found inspiration gazing out from its shores.

But Portstewart's beautiful two-mile-long white sandy strand, which attracts well over 100,000 visitors a year, is under threat. Pollution from sewage has lost the National Trust-owned beach its coveted blue flag for high standards, and now the strand's uninterrupted views to the Inishowen peninsula, in Co Donegal, are threatened by a consortium of energy companies that wants to build an offshore wind farm.

Up to 85 turbines, each 90 metres high, would be arrayed between five and 10 kilometres off the northern coast, providing electricity for about 150,000 homes. Coleraine Borough Council and its counterparts in Limavady, Moyle and Donegal are vehemently opposed to the plan, claiming the wind farm would damage tourism, wildlife and the environment and lead to job losses.

Coleraine council has launched a public campaign, called Stop the Wind Farm!, pointing out in its glossy protest leaflet that the Causeway Coast is Northern Ireland's leading holiday destination, generating €175 million a year from tourism.

The consortium, which stresses it is still only examining the feasibility of siting a wind farm in the area called Tunes Plateau, says it could prevent the emission of up to 500,000 tons a year of greenhouse gases.

A spokeswoman for B9 Energy, a member of the consortium, says its ongoing feasibility assessment covers the council's concerns. It regrets that the council is opposed to the concept of any offshore wind farm in the area before the assessment is complete, she says.

"Other councils around the UK have adopted a more constructive approach. Some have encouraged their local offshore projects and are promoting them as a positive message for tourism, highlighting their support for a cleaner environment and sustainable development."

The area's Friends of the Earth convenor, a retired professor of environmental science and ecology called Amyan MacFadyen, has found himself with divided loyalties.

"Friends of the Earth is in favour of the wind farm, but I'm personally torn about it," he says. "Scenically it does sound pretty disastrous, because they are such monstrously high towers, but as a Friends of the Earth member they are very much in favour of alternative forms of energy."

But Prof MacFadyen is unequivocal in his criticism of Northern Ireland authorities for "treating the sea as a communal cesspit", causing the loss of blue flags in neighbouring Portrush East and Millisle, in Co Down, as well as in Portstewart.

The environmental pressure group has started a legal process that could see fines levied on Water Service, Northern Ireland's state-run supplier, for breaches of sewage-pollution law that led to the loss of the three flags.

Blue flags are awarded by the Foundation for Environmental Education, a European non-governmental organisation, based on the "guideline" water-quality standards of the European Commission's bathing-water directive, as well as on other criteria, such as adequate toilet and litter facilities.

Friends of the Earth has complained to the commission about Water Service's breaches of European sewage-pollution law in the hope that the EU body will prosecute the service, part of the Department for Regional Development, which enjoys crown immunity in the UK courts. Its complaint draws the commission's attention to discharges of raw sewage into coastal waters at Portrush, Larne, Bangor and Donaghadee.

Prof MacFadyn advocates restoringfunding for a sewage-treatment plant in the area - the plan was aborted about a decade ago - in order to stop the discharge of raw sewage.

The department counters that the construction of a waste-water treatment works to serve the north-coast area, including Portstewart, is "receiving the highest priority". Subject to planning approval, the plant will be built by June 2006 at the earliest, at an estimated cost of €60 million, it says.

On a recent windy day at the beach holidaymakers and locals were braving the chilly temperatures to surf and boogie-board on the waves lapping the strand. Parked cars were lined up along the beach, with families huddled behind windbreaks.

Susan, a GP from Ballymena, in Co Antrim, emerged from the water with two of her three young children, all in wetsuits. "With small children you have to be quite aware of the cleanliness and so on, so I would probably be more reassured if the beach had kept its flag," she says. "But we've been coming here for 10 years and there's no appreciable difference."

At the entrance to the well-maintained, sand-dune-backed beach its manager, Robert Patton, stands beside a chart showing this year's regular test results for water cleanliness.

There is no smiling yellow face for his beach in the box marked Blue Flag Award, which the strand had held five times. The genial Patton says that, although it is nice to have the flag hoisted near his beach office, its loss has not affected the crowds this summer.

"It's splashed all over the papers when you lose it, but to 150,000 people on the beach it's not stopping them coming," he says. "That's 30,000 more than last year. But you'd like to think that the department would clean up their act."