A popular Sydney beach continues to have poor water quality, particularly after rainfall, despite millions of dollars flowing to try and improve stormwater drainage.
Coogee Beach in Sydney's east is one of five graded as poor in the NSW government's latest State of the Beaches report.
It was rated poor along with Hungry Head Beach on the Mid-North Coast, Terrigal Beach on the Central Coast, Malabar Beach in Sydney and Surf Beach on the south coast.
The report noted the Berejiklian government allocated $2.5 million in 2019 to divert stormwater from Coogee and improve water quality.
In May 2022, the state government appointed a consultant to meet with the Coogee Beach stormwater quality working group on designing a solution for stormwater diversion.
A final design was endorsed by the working group in June this year.
Despite record rainfall in the past year, the report found 96 per cent of monitored beaches had excellent water quality, up from 94 per cent in 2021/22.
Four ocean beaches were upgraded to very good, including Coledale in the Illawarra, Fingal Bay and South Stockton Beach in the Hunter, and Malua Bay on the south coast.
Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said the report's results were encouraging as the state entered peak swimming season.
But she encouraged swimmers to check water conditions at their favourite beaches after rainfall before taking a dip.
"Rainfall is the main reason water quality changes and we had a lot of it in 2022," she said.
"As a result, many inland and freshwater swimming sites did not perform as well as our ocean beaches."
