The good news first: most of the beaches on Lake Ohrid, Prespa and Dojran are safe for swimming this season. The latest report by the Institute of Public Health finds no mass poisoning and no pesticides above permitted levels in the analysed samples. So - you can go for a swim.

The bad news comes right after, and it's older than any single summer: the old pollution problems are not only unsolved but, in some places, remain a serious threat. Fecal waters, septic tanks, faulty sewage, pesticides. The same words, the same report, nearly the same content - year after year.

Radožda - where the septic tanks empty into the lake

The worst picture comes from Lake Ohrid, even though the water generally meets the legal criteria. The IJZ notes that a large number of hotels, restaurants, tourist settlements and private houses along the shoreline are still not connected to the collector system. Instead of going to treatment, the wastewater ends up in septic tanks - and in some places directly in the lake. At Sveti Naum, a sewage system built more than ten years ago has only a grinder for fecal matter - no filters, no chlorination before discharge.

Radožda is especially worrying, where part of the septic tanks empty directly into the lake water, or sit so close to the shore that their contents seep into the lake. At Sveti Naum, the same system has been running for years without any real protection.

The rivers are class five

Far worse is the state of the rivers flowing into the lake. The Čerava, Sateska, Koselska and Velgoška are classified as class five - the worst - on both physico-chemical and microbiological parameters, a decline compared with last year. For now the lake holds on only thanks to its enormous body of water and its capacity for self-purification. But nature is no substitute for a sewage system.

And here comes the timing that says it all. The report was published just a few days before the UNESCO World Heritage Committee decides once again whether the Ohrid Region will end up on the Danger List. The IJZ's recommendations - to put the collector fully into operation, to connect all facilities, to monitor the water constantly - have been repeated for years. Which means the problem isn't that the solution is unknown. The problem is that, for years, nobody carries it out.