About 90 per cent of Bulgaria's Black Sea coastal bathing water complied, in 2007, with the mandatory standards of the European Union's Bathing Water Directive, according to a European Commission report.

Last year was the first in which Bulgaria reported on its compliance with the mandatory values and more stringent "guide values", in the latter case scoring just more than 76 per cent. The report, released in June, said that eight bathing waters did not comply with the mandatory values and in one area, bathing had been banned during the whole 2007 season.

Information available online from the European Environment Agency said that beaches rated as "poor", meaning that they did not meet mandatory guidelines, included the area around the mineral baths at SS Elena and Konstantin resort north of Varna, Varna's Asparouhovo, Officers', Central and Briz 3 Bounite beaches, while Varna's Yuzhen (South) beach was the one that was closed for the season. All 92 "bathing waters", to use the report's term, in Bulgaria tested in 2007 rated either "excellent" or "good".
In a statement in early June 2008, local authorities in Varna said that testing had established all 23 of the city's beaches were safe for bathing.

The testing of the waters involves checking of levels of microbiological coliforms, including faecal coliforms and physico-chemical substances such as mineral oils.

The report on Bulgaria's bathing water in 2007 said that the country had compiled action plans to ensure the requirements of water quality directives were met. Bulgaria has 22 waste water treatments plants in the Black Sea coastal region, of which some are being modernised, rebuilt or enlarged. Four new plants are being built and a further eight are scheduled for completion between the end of 2010 and 2014.

Earlier this year, Environment and Water Affairs Minister Djevdet Chakurov said that Bulgaria would spend 200 million euro to build water treatment plants along the country's Black Sea coast. He said that Bulgaria intended to build waste water treatment plants for every Black Sea coast village with more than 10 000 residents by 2010.

Legislation on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast approved by Parliament last year forbids the use of mineral fertilisers along the 380km length of the coast and up to 2.1km from the coastline.

In June, the European Parliament approved a new directive on environmental standards for water that, according to the EC, will better protect coastal waters, rivers and lakes from a range of chemical substances.

The Black Sea, including Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, has a chequered history of pollution problems and rehabilitation and while various multilateral bodies are working to deal with the problems, serious threats remain.

A report in UK newspaper the Telegraph in May 2008 said that the water treatment system built at Zlatni Pyassutsi (Golden Sands) some decades ago could serve 15 000 people but not the current 40 000. A promise in 2007 of a new sewerage pipe reaching two km out to sea had not been fulfilled.

Bulgaria has nine Blue Flag beaches, meaning that they have standards that satisfy the criteria of Copenhagen-based NGO, the Foundation for Environmental Education, covering environmental education, water quality, environmental management, safety and services.

Other environmental problems that have hit the Black Sea include the incursion of the Comb Jellyfish, an alien species from the east coast of the Americas, that seriously depleted fish stocks. A 2004 report by an environmental NGO said that small quantities of radioactive materials entered the Black Sea from nuclear power plants, from water and soil contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl accident and from contaminated reservoirs in the Dnieper River. Since the 1960s, increased use of chemical fertilisers have caused changes to ecosystems, although levels of pollution have changed according to differences in industrial activity while the waters of the Danube River carry substances from polluters along its banks in Central and Eastern Europe.