You can easily swim on the Bergamo side of Lake Iseo. The analyzes carried out by the Health Protection Agency (Ats) reveal excellent water quality in almost all areas with the possibility of bathing.
«Lake Iseo represents a valuable element of the landscape and a source of richness for the ecosystem, elements that have generated an interesting tourist flow that is still rapidly expanding – underlines the Bergamo ATS in a press release -. This raises the need for interventions to protect public health, in order to guarantee that the water used for bathing purposes does not represent a danger to the health of bathers due to the presence of pathogenic microorganisms. The control of the bathing conditions of Lake Iseo is part of the institutional tasks entrusted to the Department of Hygiene and Health Prevention of the Ats Bergamo and Ats Brescia, each for the territory of competence”.
During the bathing season, the Department of Hygiene and Health Prevention of Ats Bergamo carries out checks (sampling and analysis) for bathing purposes in 19 locations on the Bergamo shore. To guarantee maximum homogeneity of the data collected, the bathing water sampling activity is carried out jointly by the Bergamo ATS and the Brescia ATS, in collaboration with the Lake Basin Authority of the Iseo, Endine and Moro Lakes .
Legislative Decree 116/2008, which constitutes the implementation of Directive 2006/7/EC, for the evaluation of the quality of water for bathing purposes, establishes the use of two standard indicators capable of suggesting the presence of pollution of fecal origin: Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci.
The classification of bathing water for the year 2024 was formulated through statistical processing of the results of the microbiological analyzes carried out in the years 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 and was confirmed by a pre-seasonal check carried out in April 2024.
The table summarizes the classification criteria provided for by the law: all those locations for which a judgment of sufficient, good or excellent quality is formulated are considered usable for bathing purposes.
The judgment on the quality of the water in the seaside resorts on the Bergamo side of Lake Iseo for the year 2024 is shown in the following table:
Even if the waters are classified at the beginning of the bathing season (therefore with an excellent, good or sufficient rating), in order to guarantee a high level of protection of the health of bathers an extemporaneous “limit value” is set, the exceeding of which requires immediate adoption, for the area concerned, of a temporary bathing ban, by the Mayor on the proposal of Ats Bergamo.
These limit values are listed in the following table:
«The sampling carried out in the current year 2024 on Lake Iseo did not show any exceeding of the limit values and therefore, to date, no Temporary Bathing Ban measure has been proposed», concludes the Bergamo ATS.
In compliance with the provisions established by the Law, on the waters of Lake Iseo, in conjunction with the taking of samples intended for microbiological analyses, further sampling is carried out to search for cyanobacteria potentially dangerous to human health. «Cyanobacteria (or blue-green algae) are photo-synthetic bacteria belonging, together with viruses and bacteria, to the prokaryote group – explains Ats Bergamo -. They are ubiquitous organisms present in waters with different levels of salinity, in soil, on rocks and on various substrates. In particular environmental conditions (favorable temperature, concentration of nutrients, wind, light) the number of cells increases to the point of giving rise to the so-called “algal blooms”, a thick superficial layer of blue-green colour, often with the presence of foam. During blooms, cyanobacteria can produce toxins which, following the progressive aging and death of cells, are released into the water. Potentially toxic algal species, i.e. capable of producing toxins potentially harmful to health, can be responsible for intoxication from ingestion, contact dermatosis and/or pneumonia from inhalation”.
The analyzes for the search for cyanobacteria, both for the samples taken on the Bergamo side and for those taken on the Brescia side, are carried out by the Ats Brescia Prevention Laboratory.
