Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 15, Number 6 • Spring 2007
Lake Ontario
Basin Update
Lake Ontario Beach Postings Continued in 2006
By Kaija Siirala and Krystyn Tully
Beaches continue to be an area of concern
in many communities along Lake
Ontario - among citizens, environmental
groups and politicians alike. For many of
the lake’s urban residents, beaches are
our gateway to nature … the closest
thing to wilderness we experience in our
everyday lives.
For the past three years, Lake Ontario
Waterkeeper has kept a daily record of which beaches have been
posted as safe or unsafe for swimming. We began our
monitoring program in the Toronto area and we expand the list
of monitored beaches each year. Nearly every beach in Ontario is
impacted by sewage or stormwater pollution.
In Ontario, municipalities sample for E-coli and “post a beach
closed” when E. coli levels exceed 100 counts. In 2006,
municipalities showed few signs of improvement. Nearly every
beach on the lake was posted at some point during the summer.
Not one city had its beaches open 95% of the summer, the
provincial standard for a clean beach.
The top five most frequently posted beaches were spread out
over the lake: Jones Beach, in St. Catharines; Bayfront Park, in
Hamilton; Rotary Park, in Durham; Lakeview Beach West, in
Durham; and Wicklow Beach in Northumberland.
The good news is that there are also beaches safe for swimming
in most areas. Eight beaches remained open for swimming for
the entire season: In Toronto, Hanlan’s Point; In Durham Region,
Frenchman’s Bay West and Whitby Beach; In Prince Edward
County, Centennial Park –Northport and Zwick’s Island; and in
Northumberland, Port Hope East and Victoria.
Causes and solutions
There is no single cause of beach postings. E. coli can come from
old sewage systems that dump untreated sewage into the lake.
It can come from stormwater that carries contaminated water
from our neighbourhoods to our beaches, or from wetlands that
are designed to treat stormwater but are not working properly.
Some experts point to birds, though Waterkeeper has not yet
found a correlation between the number of birds at a beach and
levels of E. coli.
In Ontario, we have a number of provincial policies that are
designed to identify contaminated beaches, locate the source of
the contamination, and improve water quality so it is safe for
human and aquatic life. The Ministry of the Environment’s
“Procedure F55” says beaches in cities with combined sewer
systems – where sewage is discharged untreated when there is a
lot of rain or snow – must be open at least 95% of the summer.
The Ministry of Health’s "Beach Management Protocol" says
municipalities must identify every possible source of E. coli
(pipes, wetlands, septic tanks etc.) and locate the actual source
by process of elimination in order to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, no municipality on the lake is using these tools to
meet these provincial goals.
Since no municipality has met Ontario’s standards for a clean
beach in the three years the monitoring program has been in
place, the battle to reclaim Lake Ontario’s beaches is far from
over.
If you want more information, please visit our website:
www.waterkeeper.ca/beaches. If you have information
you would like to contribute to our program,
please contact us at news@waterkeeper.ca
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