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Water quality at the city’s four beaches this summer has varied, with Britannia and Mooney’s Bay doing pretty well, but Petrie Island and Westboro continuing to have problems.
Yesterday was the 40th day that the beaches could be open for swimming, and Britannia was open for its 39th, while Mooney’s Bay had its 37th day of clean water.
That’s the good news.
Petrie Island beach was open for swimming for its 29th day yesterday, meaning public health department testing has found the water with too much E. coli bacteria in it 25 per cent of the time. Westboro, meanwhile, was closed for the 16th time this season as E. coli counts rose to higher than acceptable levels.
Jean-Guy Albert, a program manager in the public health department who monitors pollution levels at the four beaches, said it is hard to determine what is causing the problems at Westboro beach. He said currents, winds, sediments, birds, and other factors can contribute to high bacteria counts at all beaches at different times and to different degrees.
He also said that years of sampling have shown bacteria levels at Westboro beach generally become too high after five millimetres of rainfall in one storm, which has happened several times this summer.
In the entire 2006 season, Westboro, Mooney’s Bay and Britannia were closed for swimming 29, 10, and zero days, respectively. That year, Petrie Island was closed for 45 days, at least partly due to a large sewage spill in the Ottawa River close to the prime minister’s residence.
Last summer, Britannia had three no-swimming days, Westboro had 22, Petrie Island six, and Mooney’s Bay two.
(C) Ottawa Citizen