Residents will now be able to check the water quality of popular beaches online before venturing out this summer. After collecting data for several years, the Ministry of Health is launching an online portal that will report the results of recent water samples at various locations throughout the province.

The Healthy Beach Monitoring Program collects data and identifies trends including, recent flooding and run-off among other environmental factors, to determine the water quality pertaining to beach safety.

The Ministry states E.coli and blue-green algae will be what the samples will be watching for and from these results, will determine if a swimming advisory needs to be issued.

These bacteria have the potential to cause a myriad of health concerns including gastrointestinal problems, skin infections and liver damage, all of which are health risks the Ministry is looking to minimize by the new program.

In the program’s inaugural year, it will be monitoring 67 public swimming areas across the province and will rate them as either safe, caution – where swimming is not recommended, or a swimming advisory will be issued – indicating bacteria levels are beyond the safe threshold.

In cases where beaches have caution or advisory ratings, the beaches themselves are still safe for residents, said the Nicole White, Zoonotic/Environmental Health Consultant.

“People still can use the public beach even if the water is posted as caution or a swimming advisory has been issued, however, in that case, kids and pets should be supervised so they do not go in, or ingest, the water”.

White stated that although the water samples are a way to determine the water quality, the samples are taken at a single location at a certain point in time and may not reflect the entire water body.

“If we do get samples back that test above the safe limits, we will re-test quickly to ensure we don’t have to keep up advisories for any longer than we have to”.

Additionally, any postings at the beach’s physical location are considered to overrule what the website may, or may not, have reported, as closures can happen in the evenings or on weekends, and may not be immediately reflected in the online report.

For more information about the program or to access the online platform, click here.