St Kilda beach takes the dubious prize for the dirtiest beach in Melbourne, while Santa Casa – in Queenscliff on the south-eastern end of the Bellarine Peninsula – is the cleanest.

Environment Protection Authority (EPA) beach pollution data compiled for this masthead shows the overall water quality in Port Phillip Bay over the 2024-25 summer was ranked as “good” 71 per cent of the time, “fair” 19 per cent of the time, and “poor” 10 per cent of the time.

But the Victorian EPA has warned that water quality will be highly variable this summer, and pollution at some beaches could be higher.

Not only will Melbourne experience a hotter-than average summer – leading more people to the beach – the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts higher-than-average rainfall levels for summer, which will wash po

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