Though Labor Day marked the end of beach season in Evanston, health officials are still looking for ways to improve water testing after learning the city’s beaches were among the most contaminated in the state last year.
In its annual “Testing the Waters” study released this July, the Natural Resources Defense Council ranked Illinois 27th out of 30 coastal states for beach water quality in 2008.
Carl Caneva, environmental health manager in Evanston’s Health and Human Services Department, said bacteria has been an ongoing concern for the city. For the past year, he said, officials have been examining ways to identify sources of contamination and improve water-testing methods at each of the city’s six beaches.
“Our goal as a public health department is to be proactive,” Caneva said. “We want to prevent disease and protect the residents we’re serving, so we’re looking at how we can move away from just being reactive.”
Evanston’s South Boulevard Beach, 525 Sheridan Square, and Northwestern’s North Beach, 2379 North Campus Dr., ranked third and fourth out of 67 beaches in percentage of water samples that exceeded the state’s maximum E. coli standards.
Evanston health officials tested South Beach 151 times between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Samples exceeded limits 32 percent of the time, while North Beach’s 58 samples exceeded limits 31 percent of the time.
Across the state, only 15 percent of all samples taken exceeded national limits, down from 24 percent in 2007.
Evanston’s test results currently take between 12 and 24 hours to come in, Caneva said, so beach closures are often delayed until the following day. In lieu of faster or more efficient technology, Evanston’s health department began testing beaches twice a day to better understand sources of contamination.
Though the report listed an abundance of seagulls and poorly designed sewer systems as possible causes for beach pollution, Caneva said the city has been unable to point to any single contributor as a source of contamination.
“One of the more confounding things about this problem is that most beaches don’t have an obvious source of pollution,” he said. “There’s not just one variable, so it’s not as simple as looking at a place and having a clear-cut answer.”
Evanston officials have also been working with the Department of Athletics and Recreation at NU, which maintains North Beach.
Daniel Bulfin, NU’s director of recreational sports, suggested the beach’s proximity to the Wilmette locks, which drain excess water during heavy storms, might be partly to blame for the excess levels of contaminants.
“We are downstream from the Wilmette locks, so if a storm comes through the area they sometimes need to open them and let water flow through,” he said.
Despite the report, NU Aquatics Director Ed Martig said samples taken this summer showed some improvement. The University closed North Beach only three times for high levels of E. coli, down from 13 last year, he said.
“We send samples to the Civic Center every morning, and samples to the state of Illinois every other week,” he said. “All tests showed that we had good, clean water this summer.”
Martig said NU will continue to work with the city to improve water testing and ensure public safety.
“I can understand how people could be concerned, but we do our best to provide a safe environment,” he said. “People should absolutely still come out when the beach reopens next season.”
