News

Goose poop may spot the sand like squishy land mines, fuzzy algae may wave their tentacles ominously along the shoreline, but don't let the ick-factor fool you: By at least one set of international standards, Toronto's beaches are clean.

The city has 11 beaches, seven of which currently boast Blue Flag status, meaning they meet 27 criteria relating to water quality and environmental management established by a not-for-profit organization based in Denmark, the Foundation for Environmental Education.

The Blue Flag program came to Toronto five years ago, and in that time, the number of beaches on its list has grown from four to seven.

The criteria required for Blue Flag status include maintaining clean beaches, an adequate number of lifeguards, waste bins and restrooms.

Environmental Defence, the group that oversees Blue Flag certifications in Canada, requires Ontario beaches to keep E. coli populations below 100 per 100 ml of water.

“We are using a very high standard,” said Mahesh Patel, manager of Toronto Public Health's Healthy Environments section.

Canada's federal water quality standard is 200 E. coli per 100 ml, and in some parts of Europe the standard is 1,000 E. coli per 100 ml, he said.

“For the city of Toronto, all of the beaches met the land-based criteria and it more or less turned on the water quality in terms of getting the flag,” said Sarah Winterton, an education and outreach director for Environmental Defence who helped bring the program to Canada. "To be in the program, you have to meet that standard for more than 80 per cent of your tests during the summer. So if you've got a blue flag, you know that the water quality is consistently good.”

Kew-Balmy Beach, the most recent addition, was granted Blue Flag status this year, Ms. Winterton said.

Every day at each beach, a Toronto Water employee will wade into the lake and take a water sample about 45 centimetres below the surface. (The number of samples taken depends on the length of the beach.) Samples are sent to the Ministry of Health's laboratories, where they are swabbed onto agar plates and the E. coli colonies that grow over 24 hours are counted.

“It gives us an idea of what kind of pathogenic microbes are there from human and animal feces,” Mr. Patel said.

“Roughly, it give us an idea what chances there are of someone getting sick.”

Mr. Patel said swimmers can take comfort in the fact that the E. coli being measured are “indicator organisms” used to detect the presence of other pathogens. He said they live in the human gut and are relatively harmless, not the type that cause haemorrhagic illnesses and that poisoned Walkerton's water supply several years ago.