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‘We need the why’: Dartmouth Councillor seeks answers to beach closures

Click to play video: 'Popular Dartmouth lake ‘closed’ for most of summer'
Popular Dartmouth lake ‘closed’ for most of summer
High levels of bacteria led to the closure of a beach on Lake Banook for half of the supervised swimming season. – Sep 18, 2017

Lake Banook is one of Dartmouth’s most popular swimming destinations but this summer the beach was closed for nearly half of the supervised swimming season.

“We need to get to the, ‘what is happening and why?’ because if the lake is sending us a signal that something’s not quite right, then we really need to be proactive about that because can you imagine Dartmouth without Lake Banook as part of summer?” Sam Austin said, the area councillor for Dartmouth Centre.

The municipality monitors water levels at Birch Cove Beach and unusually high levels of bacteria led to multiple closures this summer.

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“Birch Cove Beach has unfortunately [been] closed a number of times this year, actually more frequent closures this year than any previous years. It actually closed six times this year for a total of 33 days,” said Cameron Deacoff, an environmental performance officer with the municipality.

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Halifax may see new rules around boating in lakes

The tests came back positive for high levels of e-Coli, according to Deacoff.

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“You can certainly get quite sick and have diarrhea and depending on what’s at play, it could get a lot worse,” Deacoff said.

The reason behind the high level of bacteria remains to be known, which is why Councillor Austin is bringing forward a motion to regional council to try to get to the bottom of it.

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“It could be coming from dogs, it could be coming from ducks, it could be human contamination, could be a disturbance in the soil, we just don’t know at this point,” Austin said.

Austin is presenting a motion at the next regional council meeting to have a ‘pollution control study’ completed.

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