Niagara Region’s public health department does a thorough job of testing 19 beaches around the region from Victoria Day to Labour Day.
However, the region can do a better job of letting people know whether it’s safe to go for a swim or let their children frolic in the water.
Checking those 19 beaches a couple of times a week is a lot of work. And to its credit, Niagara tests more beaches than any major municipality between here and Oshawa.
Niagara also tests more often than most, every Tuesday and Thursday in NOTL’s case. Toronto checks water daily, York “usually” tests twice a week, but most municipalities rely on a single weekly test.
Hamilton checks seven locations, Halton monitors eight, Peel just four, York does 14, Toronto checks 10 daily and Durham tests eight.
For Niagara, having so many public beaches is the blessing/curse of being sandwiched between two Great Lakes, Ontario and Erie. And the logistics of geography and staff availability make it challenging.
But it is essential work. Here, once samples are taken at five spots at each beach, they are processed in Hamilton and analyzed so the next day the results are known and posted on public health’s website.
That is all well and good, so far as it goes.
What’s missing is actively and transparently updating signs at each beach so that those who don’t know to check online for test results can at a glance to learn whether E. coli, algae or other conditions make the water dangerous.
As we have reported, Queen’s Royal was closed for about two weeks due to E. coli levels and was just declared safe again last Thursday. But on Tuesday it failed an E. coli test and is again unsafe for swimming.
Interviews with beachgoers repeatedly showed almost none of them knew to check the public health department’s website for water quality updates. The lone sign didn’t catch their eye.
Posting test results online is an excellent option and it is one embraced by all municipalities in the Golden Horseshoe.
But only Niagara and Hamilton have gone online-only and stopped the practice of erecting signs (or flags in Toronto’s case) that tell people when E. coli levels are too high.
It wasn’t always this way. Previously, when Queen’s Royal, Niagara-on-the-Lake’s only monitored beach, failed a test, a single bright yellow “Warning” sign would go up on a post near the waterfront. No longer.
The main reason is that beach conditions can change suddenly thanks to weather and numerous other factors. And the most up-to-date results can be readily found online. That’s all true.
Niagara’s “This beach is monitored” signs are quite informative about what can make water unsafe and how to find the latest test results online.
Unfortunately, people often ignore such subtleties and must be educated so they will take time to be informed — and maybe check the region’s website — before jumping in the water.
While there is no guarantee a bright yellow “Warning” sign would be obeyed, at least the region would be going the extra mile to draw attention to water problems.
If that ship has sailed and online-only remains Niagara’s policy, then at least prominently erect more than one sign at the beach. We’d suggest at least three at Queen’s Royal.
We asked the region what other jurisdictions do and were told to contact those other regions ourselves; so, we did.
We discovered that Niagara is an outlier, as, in addition to posting results online, all the other Golden Horseshoe municipalities (except Hamilton) use some form of active signage or flags to inform the public of dangerous E. coli levels.
After all, no one wants to unknowingly be exposed to E. coli or other nasty water-borne dangers.
In our view, doing away with on-site warnings in favour of passive signs leaves a lot to be desired.
We urge Niagara Region to revisit this policy. And if restoring warning signs when beaches fail a test is not in the cards, then at the very least add several more of the advisory signs to each monitored public beach.
