Let’s keep testing water quality at beaches

There are 14 beaches on Lake Huron where the water is tested twice a week to make sure it’s safe to swim in.

From Amberley to Port Blake, with the towns of Goderich and Bayfield in between, levels of E.coli bacteria are measured, recorded and graphed over time.

“We’re able to look at the data from year to year,” said Jean-Guy Albert, public health manager of the Huron County Health Unit. “It can help us make decisions down the road.”

You can read the reports at huronhealthunit.ca.

That historic information allows the health unit to predict how the water at any given beach will behave, even between taking a sample and getting results.

Lake Huron is not so much a lake as an enormous inland sea, with strong currents and waves, towns and parks along its shore, run-off from creeks and agricultural land. Each beach is different.

In 2016, the main beach at Goderich had too much bacteria for safe swimming almost six days out of 10. Bacteria levels have risen over the past decade.

By contrast, Bayfield beaches have low bacteria levels. Bayfield’s main beach was safe for swimming 96 per cent of the time.

Studying the long-term data can help solve problems. For example, there are lots of seagulls at beaches in Goderich, attracted by the food that people bring. Those gulls poop on the beach, which adds to lake bacteria levels when rain washes their excrement into the water.

Once officials knew that seagulls were the problem, they could work on solving it. The birds can be discouraged by placing wires over the swimming area.

Other places like Racine, Wis., have used research like this to dramatically reduce the number of unsafe-water days.

But without the information, you can’t make a good decision.

Waterloo Region councillors might want to think about all this before they stand behind a decision by public health officials to stop testing water at our local beaches.

The issue comes up Tuesday at a meeting of the region’s community services committee, which oversees public health.

Local public health officials decided to stop testing for fecal coliform bacteria in the water at local beaches in the Grand River watershed, like Laurel Creek in Waterloo and Shade’s Mill in Cambridge.

Public health officials say they can’t be sure their test results are secure, because it takes a couple of days to get the tests back.

Let’s say the water sample is taken on Monday. The test results come back Wednesday, and show the water has low bacteria levels. But by then, those results could be ancient history, if there is a storm on Tuesday that washes animal excrement into the water from nearby land and raises bacteria levels.

It could lead to a false sense of security, local health officials say.

So they’ve decided to stop testing altogether, and instead hand over the responsibility to the people who visit the beach. Signs on the beach will tell them what to watch for (clear water is safer than cloudy water, for example).

In exchange for our taxes, we’re being offered do-it-yourself risk assessment.

But what we are paying for, and should be getting, is regular testing to help monitor the water quality, a commitment to working on long-term problems, and a sensible policy on when to put out the “No Swimming” signs. If Huron County can do it on that giant lake, we can certainly do it on our little river.