'People are not happy': Presque Isle deals with swimming restrictions at Beaches 6 & 8
Their job has been to politely inform visitors that swimming has been restricted at the popular beaches due to consistently high levels of E. coli bacteria. No one has been allowed to swim at Beaches 6 and 8 since July 8.
"People are not happy and understandably so," said Matt Greene, the park's operations manager. "These are two of our most popular beaches and people have been going to them for a long time."
High E. coli levels are a concern because they indicate a significant amount of sewage or animal waste in the water that can give swimmers gastrointestinal illness or skin infections.
Park officials have been working with the Erie County Department of Health to figure out why levels are so high, and what can be done to lower them and once again allow people to swim at Beaches 6 and 8.
"Right now, we don't have an explanation," Greene said. "We haven't seen any unusual storms that cause run off from nearby streams, or significant bird activity at those beaches."
Though water samples taken at both beaches this week have not exceeded the daily limit of 999 E. coli particles per 100 milliliters of lake water, they have been high enough at both beaches to exceed the average, or geometric mean, of 126 particles over the previous 30 days of testing.
Beach 6's geometric mean was 146 on July 11, while Beach 8's was 127.8, Greene said.
"One good (testing) day could bring them down and allow us to lift the restrictions," Greene said.
The issue most days has been that one of the three daily samples taken at each beach has been high, which increases the beach's average. After a storm passes, the amount of E. coli in all three samples is usually elevated.
Some days a sample taken from the edge of a beach's swimming section is high, while other times it's a sample taken from the middle, Greene said.
Park officials are "crunching the numbers" to determine a reason for the high levels, Greene said. They are looking at several possible causes, including infrastructure problems and testing anomalies.
More: Swimming restricted for second straight day at two Presque Isle State Park beaches
Though swimming is currently not allowed at the park's two most popular beaches, park officials do have alternatives.
They have opened Beaches 1, 3, 7 and 10 for swimming in recent days, along with Beach 11, which is usually open for swimming. They might even open Beach 9 on weekends, Greene said.
"The bathrooms at those beaches are already open, so we just make sure the lifeguard operations are ready at those beaches," Greene said. "Beaches 6 and 8 are centrally located, though, and they are where we have put in so much infrastructure. We don't like having restrictions at all, but certainly not at those two beaches."
Contact David Bruce at dbruce@gannett.com. Follow him on X @ETNBruce.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: No swimming at Presque Isle beaches still due to E. coli
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