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It’s not turning out to be a very good year at Westboro Beach.
So far, out of the 29 days the beach has been officially open to swimmers this summer, it’s been closed 11 days because of high E. coli levels discovered in the water by the city’s public health department.
A no-swimming advisory is issued if bacteria levels exceed 200 E. coli per 100 millilitres of water tested.
On June 30, levels of 1,000 per 100 ml of water were detected — more than five times the limit. That’s the highest count at the beach so far this year and higher than any amount tested at any other city beach.
Petrie Island Beach in the east end has come under fire over the past couple of years because of high levels of E. coli detected there.
The reasons are now known, but even E. coli levels there haven’t come close to levels found in Westboro Beach waters. The highest level at Petrie Island Beach this year was 411 on July 2.
That doesn’t come close to the second highest amount found at Westboro two days later when an E. coli count of 611 per 100 ml was was recorded.
Dixon Weir, the city’s director of waste water services, said Westboro Beach has always been affected by small and heavy rainfall events.
“And we’ve had lots of rain this year. Five or six millimetres of rain can cause that beach to close and that’s not an awful lot of rain,” Weir said.
It isn’t sewer water working its way into the water at Westboro, it’s animal and bird feces and other waste that the rain washes into the storm water sewer system that spills directly into the Ottawa River.
There aren’t a lot of storm sewers that dump straight into the river but there are plenty in that area of the city.
“Along the parkway there are a number of outlets,” said Weir, where the beach is located.
In newer suburbs, storm waters usually end up in a retention pond where larger floatables and bacteria can settle, minimizing what eventually flows into the river.
However, human waste can make its way into city storm sewers and then into the river.
Weir said someone who is completing home renovations can mistakenly connect a toilet to a storm water pipe.
“Inadvertent errors get made,” he said.
For more information on daily beach updates, visit www.ottawa.ca
Ottawa Sun