|
Wayne County Troubled by Closures
Jeremy Houghtaling and Louise Hoffman Broach | Wayuga Staff
Wednesday, August 19 2009
LAKE ONTARIO - Pultneyville’s Mariners Beach has been ranked as the worst New York Great Lakes beach due to excessive bacteria levels, based on a new report by the National Resources Defense Council.
Mariners Beach closed on four separate occasions in 2008, with the longest closing being 21 days. The total amount of days closed reached 34.
After seeing the report, Williamson Town Supervisor James Hoffman said he was “very concerned” and talked to Henry Kelsey, the district manager of the Wayne County Water and Soil Conservation District. Hoffman says he plans to attend their next meeting.
Hoffman said he knew of a problem, but not how bad it was.
Kelsey said the SWCD plans to strategize with the Wayne County Water Quality Coordinating Committee. One of the first steps is to take water samples to see if the data matches the NRDC report, then try to find out where the problem is coming from.
Mariners Beach, which is privately owned, has yet to close this year, but to the east, the Lake Ontario beach at Sodus Point Park, which Wayne County runs, has been closed for nearly two weeks.
The state Department of Health, which normally tests the water at Sodus Point every two weeks, discovered e.coli contamination there on Aug. 10, but the beach had closed three days earlier because of an overabundance of seaweed, said Sarah O’Brien, the Youth Services assistant who runs the swim program at the park and oversees the lifeguards.
The county got the go-ahead to re-open Aug. 14 after the e.coli issue had resolved itself, but O’Brien said the decision was made within her department to leave the beach closed because of the seaweed.
The seaweed, which cuts down on visibility in the water, creates a safety issue, not a health issue, O’Brien said. She said the problem is caused by “combination of rain, the lack of rain and the hot weather.”
E.coli issues are brought on by an overabundance of rain, she said. The beach has been closed “sporadically” for e.coli this summer, and also for high seaweed levels, O’Brien said. The closures have not affected the beach on the bay side of Sodus Point.
The Citizens Campaign for the Environment said the primary reasons for the closings last year at Pultneyville is bacteria from wildlife and runoff from severe storms.
The CCE said that severe storms in 2008 contributed to a number of closings all over the Great Lakes region, and that climate change could make matters worse. The U.S. Government found that precipitation increased by 5 percent over the past 50 years and predicts the Northeast will see continued increases in wet-weather events.
There are a few acts in Congress to help Great Lakes beaches, including the Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and new initiative proposed by President Obama to invest $475 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to help protect and restore the region.
The NRDC is a not-for-profit organization that has 1.2 million members and e-activists that aim to safeguard public health and the environment. This is the 19th year the organization has released a beach water quality report, called Testing the Waters. The report documents the threats to New York’s beaches by an increase in stormwater-related closings, exacerbated by New York’s aging and failing sewage infrastructure.
“The Great Lakes are the heart of our region,” said Sarah Eckel, CCE’s CNY Program Coordinator. “Losing beach days to preventable problems like sewage and polluted run-off jeopardizes public health and our regional economy. We have the tools to fix these problems, and we need to act now.”
| No previous subhead |
| |
No next subhead |
No comments have been posted.
|
