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CBS News
4 days ago
- Climate
- CBS News
Dozens of beaches in Massachusetts closed for swimming due to bacteria, toxic algae in water
It will be ideal beach day weather in Massachusetts this weekend, with sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s and 90s. But dozens of beaches across the state are closed for swimming because there is either too much bacteria in the water or toxic algae is present. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health maintains a daily online dashboard of beach closures. As of 8 a.m. Friday, there were more than 50 closures listed. The main beach at Walden Pond in Concord is closed all summer due to construction of a new bathhouse. Damon Pond Beach, Ashby (Bacterial Exceedance)Ashland Reservoir - Main Beach, Ashland (Bacterial Exceedance)Woodbury, Beverly (Bacterial Exceedance)Nutting Lake - Micozzi Beach @ North, Billerica (Bacterial Exceedance)Nutting Lake - Micozzi Beach @ South, Billerica (Bacterial Exceedance) Carson Beach @ Bathhouse, Boston (Bacterial Exceedance)Carson Beach @ L Street, Boston (Bacterial Exceedance) Freeman Lake, Chelmsford (Bacterial Exceedance and Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Chicopee Beach, Chicopee (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Walden Pond - Main, Concord (Other)Sandy Beach, Danvers (Bacterial Exceedance)Moses Smith Creek, Dartmouth (Bacterial Exceedance)Centennial Grove, Essex (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Learned Pond Beach, Framingham (Bacterial Exceedance) Saxonville Beach, Framingham (Bacterial Exceedance) Chilson Beach, Franklin (Bacterial Exceedance) American Legion Park, Georgetown (Bacterial Exceedance) Seymour Pond, Harwich (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Eagle Lake, Holden (Bacterial Exceedance)Pleasure Point, Holliston (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Stoddard Park, Holliston (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Sandy Point - Plum Island @ North, Ipswich (Bacterial Exceedance)Santuit Pond @ Bryants Neck, Mashpee (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Santuit Pond @ Town Landing, Mashpee (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Nahant Beach, Nahant (Bacterial Exceedance) Sesachacha Pond, Nantucket (Bacterial Exceedance) Cochituate State Park Beach, Natick (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Memorial Beach @ Wading (Bacterial Exceedance)Crystal Lake, Newton (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Frye Pond Beach, North Andover (Bacterial Exceedance) Stevens Pond - Center, North Andover (Bacterial Exceedance) Carbuncle Pond, Oxford (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Lulu Pond Beach, Pittsfield (Bacterial Exceedance) Children's Island, Salem (Bacterial Exceedance) Ocean Avenue, Salem (Bacterial Exceedance) Willow Avenue, Salem (Bacterial Exceedance) Pearce Lake @ Breakheart Reservation, Saugus (Bacterial Exceedance) Community Center Beach, Sharon (Bacterial Exceedance) South Pond Beach, Southwick (Bacterial Exceedance) Bass Pond @ Right, Springfield (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Camp Wilder @ Right), Springfield (Bacterial Exceedance) Paddle Club @ Right, Springfield (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Beamans Pond, Templeton (Bacterial Exceedance) Pearl Hill Pond Beach, Townsend (Bacterial Exceedance) Shangri-La, Wareham (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Lakeside, Webster (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Memorial Beach, Webster (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Hampton Ponds - Kingsley Beach, Westfield (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Hamptons Pond - Lamberts Beach, Westfield (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) Crow Hill Pond Beach, Westminster (Bacterial Exceedance)Wilmington Town Beach, Wilmington (Bacterial Exceedance) Bacterial exceedance can result from runoff pollution or sewage overflows after heavy rain. Swimming in water with too much bacteria can cause gastrointestinal symptoms, respiratory illness and itching. The harmful cyanobacteria blooms can lead to similar problems. The algae bloom occurs when cyanobacteria multiplies quickly, causing water to become pea soup-colored and smell bad. In Plymouth last week, beachgoers and their pets were warned to avoid several ponds because the toxic algae could make them sick. None of the beach closures are related to a rare flesh-eating bacteria that infected a swimmer at Old Silver Beach in Falmouth. Health officials there say the beach is safe for swimming as long as people make sure they do not go in the water with an exposed wound.
The Guardian
11-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Poem of the week: Autumn by Vidyan Ravinthiran
Autumn (after John Keats) The fallen yellow leaves now oftener flare red. Embers. Blown-up chilli-flakes. The burning of the library at Jaffna. Foreign dead about to break the spell of here and now. Phantasms steal into the peaceful lives we seem to have earned, telling tales about what happened to them, not us, and in a tongue I never learned. This is my garden, my spade of blood meal and from our kitchen the time-travelling smell of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond. – A swooping cardinal like a struck match. Above the fence mosquitoes eddy like opinion, crazed by a patch, of red-pink light into giddy scribbling on the air. There is no need to be ashamed. I see you there and keep alive the thought of meeting one day brightly after the next. Black mustard seed thrums in the sauce, the sky falls asleep; where feelings come from or may leap across and through and to no one can say. Tsunami-hit, shoved over at a tilt, they've left the bashed old kovil's god-thronged tower standing tallish, beyond the new one built to face, this time, becalm, the ocean's power … Our autumn clouds are a far-quarried rubble to which the changing light does spicy things. To sing, to fly, migrate, are curious verbs; beauty, like happiness, frailly reliable, has nothing to do with why there are wings, why birds build nests and sing their songs, or why barbed wire's besotted with its barbs. Contemporary poetry collections often fall into one of two dominant categories. One kind travels thoughtfully, claiming spaces in an unfamiliar elsewhere, the other stays at home, revisiting and refining material that's more familiar. Avidyā, Vidyan Ravinthiran's latest, represents for me the exploratory kind, a tour that skirts the flames of history in a relaxed almost self-effacing manner. This is especially true of Autumn. The subtitle's qualification after slyly denotes the time and distance between the two poems. Keats wrote his ode To Autumn on 19 September 1819. The England-born Sri Lankan poet is writing more than two centuries later; since Keats's time Sri Lanka has been colonised by the British, granted independence, endured civil war and seen terrible reprisals against the Tamil Tigers for their armed struggle for independence. The autumnal redness the poem evokes soon turns to fire. A rhythm of stops and starts underlines the threat: 'The fallen yellow leaves now oftener / flare red. Embers. Blown-up chilli-flakes. / The burning of the library at Jaffna.' Keats, reading over the poet's shoulder, might remember Peterloo (critics have found that massacre in his ode's possible subtext of 'surveillance') and realise that the 21st century poet is also witness to less than 'mellow fruitfulness'. Autumn soon reveals the violent biblioclasm of 1981 when Jaffna Public Library, one of the biggest libraries in Asia and a major Tamil cultural centre, was burned down by a mob that included police and paramilitaries. But it isn't books and buildings alone that have been destroyed. The shapes emerging from the poet's past become the 'foreign dead', the 'phantasms' that 'steal / into the peaceful lives we seem to have earned.' Those phantasms give their version of events ('telling tales'), further distancing the poet by speaking 'in a tongue I never learned'. The ensuing jump of imagery, from the 'garden' declared his own, to the necessary 'spade of blood meal' is effectively plotted. Danger is diffused by the magic, humour and resistance found in cookery. In many cultures, families and societies come together to eat 'grief food'. The instant 'chilli-flakes' evoked earlier are an acknowledgment of cultural compromises. Then a further unexpected move occurs: 'and from our kitchen the time-travelling smell / of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond'. There's no abruptness; the translation from the poet's garden where he now lives in the US to Thoreau's retreat is amused, peaceable, sensuous. Choosing, as Keats chose, the subversively 11-lined stanza, Ravinthiran further complicates its balance. A clearcut, almost emphatically rhymed ABAB quatrain evolves into the looser assembly of seven lines whose rhymes may sound out less distinctly. Stanza two introduces a brilliant short film of the cardinal's swoop and the responsive movement of mosquitoes that 'eddy / like opinion.' That nicely poised, concrete-abstract simile is followed by the rather more Keatsian image of the insects 'scribbling on the air'. Keats's poem always addresses Autumn. Who is Ravinthiran addressing with 'There is no need / to be ashamed'? The tone sounds loving, even lover-like, with its note of future expectation. But perhaps the 'you' is the poem, or the poet courting his muse? 'You' might also be the 'phantasms' who have helplessly spoken in a strange 'tongue'. Ravinthiran's poetic 'courtship' is oblique, questioning, almost shy: 'where feelings come from or may leap / across and through and to no one can say.' Those monosyllables form little uneven stepping stones in a swashing river. After that, the picture enlarges dramatically with the tsunami of 2004, the Dravidian temple, 'the old kovil's god-thronged tower' and the defensive new-build. These lines extend history and still find it dangerous. Conflict is suggested: the sunset's clouds are 'a far-quarried rubble' and there may be no comfort in the assertion that 'the light does spicy things' to them. Open-winged birds of possibility still circle. The conflation of truth and beauty is gently queried: the beauty of birds is mechanism, the poet says, as he hooks the reader sharply down to earth with the marriage of 'verbs' and 'barbs'. The personification of barbed wire as a narcissist fixes in a single line the worst of human nature. A tyrannical border splices the garden, its fragrances and reconciliations. Those barbs may presage a deeper colour of autumnal red.
CBS News
20-07-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Two dozen beaches closed for swimming in Massachusetts: See the list
Two dozen beaches are closed for swimming in Massachusetts, mostly because of unsafe levels of bacteria in the water. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health publishes a dashboard every day of beach closures. Click here to see the list. The main beach at the famed Walden Pond in Concord is closed all summer due to the construction of a new bathhouse. Damon Pond Beach, Ashby (Bacterial Exceedance)Ashland Reservoir - Main Beach, Ashland (Bacterial Exceedance)Hopkinton Reservoir - Upper Beach, Ashland (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Keyes Beach ( Sea Street), Barnstable (Bacterial Exceedance)Brackenbury, Beverly (Bacterial Exceedance)Patuisset, Bourne (Bacterial Exceedance)Upper Mill Pond, Brewster (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Walden Pond - Main, Concord (Other)Sandy Beach, Danvers (Bacterial Exceedance)Moses Smith Creek, Dartmouth (Bacterial Exceedance)Cook's Brook, Eastham (Bacterial Exceedance)S. Sunken Meadow, Eastham (Bacterial Exceedance)Eagle Lake, Holden (Bacterial Exceedance)Carbuncle Pond, Oxford (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Children's Island - Back, Salem (Bacterial Exceedance)Ocean Avenue, Salem (Bacterial Exceedance)Camp Wilder @ Right, Springfield (Bacterial Exceedance)Kings, Swampscott (Bacterial Exceedance)Beamans Pond - Campground, Templeton (Bacterial Exceedance)Beamans Pond - Day Use, Templeton (Bacterial Exceedance)Pearl Hill Pond Beach, Townsend (Bacterial Exceedance) Upton Town Beach, Upton (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom)Lake Dennis State Park @ North Camp Beach, Winchendon (Bacterial Exceedance) Donovans, Winthrop (Bacterial Exceedance) Bacterial exceedance is often caused by runoff pollution or sewage overflows after heavy rain. Last weekend, about three dozen beaches were closed for swimming following torrential downpours. The harmful cyanobacteria blooms that are closing a handful of swimming spots result from warm, slow-moving water that is full of nutrients like nitrogen or phosphorous, the Centers for Disease Control says. Swimming in water with too much bacteria can cause gastrointestinal or respiratory illness, as well as skin rashes and itching.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Mass. beach closures: Nearly 40 beaches closed on Sunday, July 13
Several beaches across Massachusetts are closed on Sunday, July 13. Nearly 40 beaches were closed mostly due to high bacteria levels, according to the state Department of Public Health. One of those is the main beach at Walden Pond State Reservation, which will remain closed for the entirety of summer 2025 as a new, state-of-the-art $6.1 million bathhouse is constructed. Red Cross Beach at Walden Pond will remain open with no lifeguards. Here is the list of closed beaches: Ashby: Damond Pond Beach for an unlisted reason Ashland: Ashland Reservoir-Main Beach due to bacterial exceedance Beverly: Brakenbury due to bacterial exceedance Boston: Constitution at Middle, North and Rec Center; Malibu; Tenean; all due to bacterial exceedance Bourne: Cataumet Harbor; Patuisset due to bacterial exceedance Brewster: Upper Mill Pond due to harmful cyanobacteria bloom Brookfield: South Pond due to bacterial exceedance Chatham: Jacknife Harbor due to bacterial exceedance Concord: Walden Pond - Main - due to an unlisted reason Danvers: Sandy Beach due to bacterial exceedance Dartmouth: Jones Town Beach North and South due to a CSO/SSO event; Moses Smith Creek due to bacterial exceedance Eastham: S. Sunken Meadow due to bacterial exceedance Lynn: Kings beach at Eastern Ave., Kimball Road and Pierce Road due to bacterial exceedance Quincy: Wollaston at Channing Street, Milton Street, Rice Road, and Sachem Street due to bacterial exceedance Salem: Children's Island - Back - and Ocean Avenue due to bacterial exceedance Springfield: Camp Wilder at Right due to bacterial exceedance Swampscott: Fisherman's, Kings and Phillips, due to bacterial exceedance Swansea: Leeside due to bacterial exceedance Templeton: Beamans Pond, at Campground and Day Use, due to bacterial exceedance Westminster: Crow Hill Pond Beach due to bacterial exceedance Winchester: Shannon Beach at Upper Mystic due to bacterial exceedance Winthrop: Donovans and Halford due to bacterial exceedance Bacteria in beach water can come from a variety of sources, including: Stormwater (rain) run-off Failing or malfunctioning septic systems Combined and sanitary sewer overflows Leaking sewer pipes Illegal sewer hookups Wildlife and pet waste Agricultural runoff In order to ensure beaches are safe for swimming, the DPH tests the waters anywhere from daily to monthly, depending on how likely the beach is to have water quality issues and its popularity. If a beach is used often or is prone to water quality issues, then it's tested more often and vice versa, the DPH wrote. Beaches remain closed until laboratory analysis shows bacteria levels are within the acceptable range for safe swimming. 'Laboratory analysis for all beach samples takes approximately 24 hours,' according to the department's website. 'So it is common for a beach closure to last a day or two following an exceedance.' Swimming in beach water that has high levels of bacteria can be risky and can result in illnesses, including: Gastrointestinal symptoms- nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain Respiratory symptoms- sore throat, cough, runny nose and sneezing Dermatological symptoms- skin rash and itching Eye and ear symptoms- irritation, earache, itching Flu-like symptoms- fever and chills Therefore, it's important to check for any warnings or beach closures indicating that the water could be unsafe. To do this, done check the weather, avoid swimming after heavy rain, watch for signs of water pollution like discolored, fast flowing and strong smelling water, do not swim near trash or litter floating in the water, avoid swallowing the water and swim in areas designated as 'swim beaches.' Although a beach could be posted, the public can still visit the location and take part in other activities that don't involve contact with the water. This can include anything from playing sports like volleyball or frisbee to sunbathing or collecting seashells or sea glass, the DPH said. The public can also do its part in helping to reduce contamination and pollution at the beach by: Cleaning up after pets Not feeding the birds as it encourages them to hang around the beaches, which increases fecal matter Using public restrooms Picking up and throwing away trash using public restrooms or properly disposing of it at home Not entering the water when sick or feeling unwell Changing diapers and putting plastic or rubber pants, known as swim diapers, on diapered children before they enter the water Not dumping anything down storm drains, as water moving through these drains does not get treated at a wastewater facility and flows directly into lakes and streams Avoiding the use of fertilizers and pesticides in yards since these chemicals can easily carry into the surface of waters during rain events and snowmelt Use walkways and avoid walking on dunes to prevent erosion and preserve vegetation that filters out pollutants from runoff before they reach the beach More details from the DPH can be found here. After long break, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Italian Feast is back (Photos) Generations of Desmarais family gather in Chicopee for 100th reunion 'He didn't deserve this': Mass. man who died after police struggle identified Driver injured after crashing into 2 Springfield homes Gardener's Supply Co. bankruptcy is set to hit WMass farms hard Read the original article on MassLive.
CBS News
04-07-2025
- Climate
- CBS News
More than 20 beaches closed in Massachusetts for July 4th
The weather forecast is perfect for a day at the beach this July 4th. But more than 20 beaches at lakes and ponds are closed for swimming across Massachusetts on Friday. The closures are mostly due to high levels of bacteria in the water. In Concord, the main beach at Walden Pond is closed all summer because construction of a new bathhouse poses safety concerns to the public. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has an online dashboard of water quality test results at local beaches. Below is the list of beaches that were closed for swimming as of 8 a.m. Friday, and the reason for the closure. Damon Pond Beach, Ashby (Other) Brackenbury, Beverly (Bacterial Exceedance) Flax Pond, Brewster (Bacterial Exceedance) Upper Mill Pond, Brewster (Harmful Cyanobacteria Bloom) South Pond, Brookfield (Bacterial Exceedance) Walden Pond, Concord (Other) Sandy Beach, Danvers (Bacterial Exceedance) Moses Smith Creek, Dartmouth (Bacterial Exceedance) S. Sunken Meadow, Eastham (Bacterial Exceedance) Upper Highland Lake, Goshen (Bacterial Exceedance) Magnolia @ East, Manchester (Bacterial Exceedance) Lulu Pond Beach, Pittsfield (Other) Children's Island - Back, Salem (Bacterial Exceedance) Willow Avenue, Salem (Bacterial Exceedance) Peckham Pond, Saugus (Bacterial Exceedance) Sunset Beach, Shrewsbury (Bacterial Exceedance) Lake Wyola, Shutesbury (Bacterial Exceedance) Beamans Pond - Campground, Templeton (Bacterial Exceedance) Beamans Pond - Day Use, Templeton (Bacterial Exceedance) Seth's Pond @ Town Beach, West Tisbury (Bacterial Exceedance) Lake Dennison State Park, Winchendon (Bacterial Exceedance) Shannon Beach @ Upper Mystic, Winchester (Bacterial Exceedance) Why are beaches closed in Massachusetts? Bacteria in the water is usually attributed to stormwater runoff or sewage overflows after heavy rain, environmental experts say. Swimming in bodies of water that exceed acceptable levels of bacteria can cause gastrointestinal illness, skin rashes and itching.
