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Dave Leigh says he didn’t know, but he sure does now: He and his wife and children won’t be swimming anymore at the city’s Petrie Island beach near Cumberland.
Dave Leigh doesn’t like it that two of his three kids fell sick from swimming at a public beach sanctioned by the city of Ottawa.
Says Leigh, 41, a courier who lives in Orleans: “As far as I’m concerned that part of the Ottawa River is just a sewer.”
That’s his pollution issue. But it’s not his only issue. He also says: “The beach opened for swimming at 9 a.m., but the lifeguards didn’t come on duty until noon. You can drown just as well at 9 a.m. as you can at noon. Not only that, but when they came on—three hours after we and other people got there for swimming—they announced over a PA system that the pollution levels are high in the water and swimming is not recommended.”
NOT RECOMMENDED?
Excuse me? Not recommended? Why wasn’t the beach closed? It was too late for two of Dave and Sophie Leigh’s children and his nephew from Oshawa. This was the Civic Holiday weekend, the week before last. A Saturday.
Dave’s sister Anik and her husband Frank were visiting with their son Jack, 7, and daughter Rachel, 10. With Dave and Sophie and their kids—Catrina 6, and the twins Jasmine and Olivia, 18 months old—they all decided to go picnicking and swimming at Petrie Island beach, the city of Ottawa’s $2-million redevelopment project that opened last summer in controversy, five years after the city’s health department said to expect big problems with water quality because it didn’t meet provincial standards of safety. Never mind the sewage run-off in the river, the fact that a garbage dump was once in the vicinity of the beach didn’t help.
So what’s happened? Petrie Island beach has been closed due to high bacteria counts of E.coli since it opened far more than the city’s other Ottawa River beaches, Britannia and Westboro; this summer no exception.
About that holiday weekend: “We got there about 9:30 in the morning,” says Dave Leigh. “None of us even went in for a real swim, but we could have. It was the kids who went in the water, but only paddling in it along the shoreline. I was walking with one of the twins in the water when she slipped and got a mouthful. She laughed, she was fine.”
Right. Fine. A few days later, the twins developed diarrhea, stomach cramps, a rash on their bottoms, and eye infections. Nephew Jack, a rash.
They’re still not over the ailments. Sophie Leigh is a nurse and says it’s all from the polluted (and daily inspected) water at Petrie Island beach on a day that swimming was permitted when it should have been disallowed.
“There was a chip wagon at the beach,” says Dave Leigh, “and after we’d been there awhile, I bought some french fries. The guy selling them said ‘I hope you’re not thinking of going in the water today, it’s terrible, it’s unsafe.’
“He said he was told that the day before the bacteria count was over 1,000. How would anyone know there shouldn’t have been swimming allowed the day we were there? There were no signs posted. If the beach is open and you’re allowed in, you assume it’s safe, right?”
(According to the website of Ottawa Riverkeepers, a citizens group with a board of directors formed in 2000 to monitor water conditions, there should be a “No Swimming” advisory if bacteria levels exceed 200 E.coli per 100 mL of tested water.)
ORANGE PYLONS
Yesterday, at the beach Dave Leigh and his family will never be going to again, orange pylons ran along the shoreline. A City of Ottawa sign attached to each lifeguard station read: “Beach unsupervised and unsafe for swimming. High levels of bacteria in these waters may pose a risk to your health.”
Beach unsupervised? Then what were the two lifeguards doing on duty at the beach that opened at 9 a.m. with them not having to show up to start their duties until noon? One lifeguard’s name was Jeff.
“We recommend no swimming, but people are going in anyway,” he said.
Why is the beach not simply closed for swimming?
“I don’t know. I can’t talk about that. You’ll have to speak to someone from the city.”
I tried.
I’m still waiting to get an answer.
Ottawa SUN