High E. coli readings at Lakeview beaches

By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express

The first bacteria readings for the Lakeview West and Lakeview East beaches have shown E coli numbers are more than four times higher than acceptable levels.

“We take five samples at each beach, and we’re testing for E coli bacteria, and the threshold is 100 (E coli bacteria per 100 mL of water), so it has to be less than 100,” Mike Pittman, a senior public health inspector, told The Oshawa Express. “The geometric mean for Lakeview West was 414, and for Lakeview East, it was 468.”

However, Pittman adds that spikes like this are typical following heavy rain. The tests, taken on June 1, were preceded by rain over the weekend.

“It’s atypical (for this time of year), but it’s typical after a heavy rainfall…any time you get those heavy rainfalls, the bacteria numbers always jump up because you have all the storm sewers washing all kinds of debris and what not into the lake,” Pittman says. “Normally, we won’t sample if it’s raining, but if it’s clear, we’ll take that sample, but we’ll know the samples are probably going to be high, so as a precaution, we post the beach.”

As bacteria testing of the region’s 13 beaches are done once a week, Pittman says the regional health department has posted a permanent sign to advise would-be swimmers to stay out of the water following a heavy rainfall.

“So if, for example, we had a good sample on Monday. They were perfectly fine. But because we only sample once a week, if for instance we had a heavy rainfall on Friday, people might think the beach was safe because we don’t have a posting up,” he says. “But because we have a sign up saying, “Heavy rainfall, don’t swim,” then hopefully they’ll heed that because results can change dramatically over a short period of time.”