Bermuda’s beaches are among the genuine wonders of the natural world, celebrated in art, poetry and song and synonymous with the Island in the minds of vacationers and armchair travellers alike.

Despite the post-Second World War building boom which has gradually reduced Bermuda’s open spaces, agricultural land and environmentally sensitive areas to the barest of minimums, the beaches remain largely unspoilt.

For the most part housing and hotel developments have never been permitted to encroach on the pink-sand coastline and beachfront business and recreational facilities continue to be actively discouraged. Bermuda has a truly admirable record when it comes to preserving and protecting these God-given natural amenities, keeping virtually all man-made intrusions at bay.

On an Island where even the most pressing environmental issues generally inspire little more than bland platitudes and pieties from politicians, Bermuda’s long-standing efforts to maintain its picturesque beaches actually owes something to conservationist US president Teddy Roosevelt’s guiding principle: namely, that while every generation has the right to use the natural resources of its land, none has the right to waste or despoil them — and to thus rob generations to come.

Given this history of prudent foresight, recent revelations about the relative frequency with which raw sewage now contaminates our inshore waters and washes up on our foreshore are as baffling as they are alarming. The outfall from the City of Hamilton’s decrepit, century-old sewage system is pumped into the ocean at Seabright Point on the South Shore; at peak flow the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) estimates 500,000 to 1 million gallons of untreated sewage is discharged every day.

Under normal conditions, the waste quickly dilutes in the open sea and is dissipated. But conditions appear to have been increasingly abnormal of late.

In a recent advisory issued to potential vacationers, the US Consul General noted that as many as five of Bermuda’s beaches were “unfit for recreational use” on various occasions over the last year. Swimmers run the risk of contracting illnesses ranging from gastroenteritis to typhoid when water quality levels are particularly poor.

Not only that but faecal material (euphemistically described as “grease balls” by public health officials) being deposited on sands which were once only littered with sea shells presents another potential health hazard.

If left unresolved the situation will pose a quite literal triple threat to Bermuda — one which could have a hugely damaging impact on our environment, our public relations and, ultimately, our economy. Coming as it does at a time when the newly-created Tourism Authority is attempting to entirely rebrand and reposition the Island as vacation destination, the fact faecal contamination up to four times the acceptable US levels has been recorded in Bermuda’s inshore waters is hardly going to cause a spike in visitor bookings.

Official attempts at damage-limitation by Bermuda authorities have so far been both inadequate and ineffective. The US Consul General’s health warning to potential American visitors was dismissed in blasé fashion by local authorities; stopping just short of describing the consulate as alarmist, the cases cited in the travel advisory were dismissed as “short in duration, self-resolving, limited in scope and driven by very specific weather circumstances”. Some resolution.

The latest tide of sewage to wash up on our shores earlier this week demonstrates the problem is an ongoing one; that Government’s promised public alert system to warn swimmers when pollution is at unacceptable levels is currently no more effective than the watertight doors on The Titanic; and that Bermuda is now paying the price for decades of official indifference to a vital part of our infrastructure by successive Governments as well as the Corporation of Hamilton.

The reality is that since the time of its last major upgrade, the Seabright sewage outfall has remained a subject of benign neglect even while untold hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds have been squandered on civic vanity projects, boondoggles and political perks.

Health Minister Trevor Moniz, who has inherited this unhappy state of affairs and must now find a solution to it, has already pointed out the necessary improvements to the sewer outfall will require “considerable funding” and an extended timetable to complete. While some short-term remedial measures are now being taken to both treat and reduce the amount of sewage dumped by Seabright, there can be no quick fixes.

More’s the pity. Because until there is a permanent resolution to this urgent situation, Bermuda does in fact risk despoiling one of its most appealing and irreplaceable natural resource for future generations.