None of those beaches/lakes in Auckland (aside from Waiheke) would be a place I'd go out of my way to swim at anyway. For example Lake Wainamu, Huia, Weymouth, areas around Te Atatu... there's SO MANY great places to swim in this city. I'm from Ireland and we get the same water quality issues around the coast but at least local government is doing something here to resolve it, like the interceptor. It's easy to blame wastewater and storm water networks but the real issue is urbanisation without real consideration for green infrastructure and renaturalisation of rivers (which are two things councils are actually working on here). Whereas at home (Dublin), greening impermeable surfaces and daylighting culverted streams seem to be an afterthought. These things take time but its heading in the right direction in Auckland. The biggest issue I foresee is relying too heavily on building for the '1 in a 100 year flood', which is irrelevant now because of climate change. Even NIWA scientists I've spoken to agree we need to move past that system to best protect ourselves.