TORONTO – With a warm and sunny weekend ahead you may want to think twice before taking a cool dip in the waters at Toronto beaches.
The City of Toronto is reporting that seven out of 11 city beaches are unsafe for swimming after recording high levels of E. coli bacteria.
The Medical Officer of Health issued the warning and recommends bathers not to enter these temporarily polluted waters.
The beaches that are unsafe include: Marie Curtis Park East Beach, Sunnyside Beach, Hanlan’s Point Beach, Gibraltar Point Beach, Centre Island Beach, Ward’s Island Beach and Cherry Beach.
Woodbine Beaches, Kew Balmy Beach, Rouge Beach and Bluffer’s Beach Park are the only three locations which are safe to swim.
The swimming conditions were reported as of July 10 on the City of Toronto website.
The city indicates that it takes daily water samples from the supervised beaches across the city to test for E. coli bateria from June to August.
In Ontario the standard for beach water quality is set by the Ministry of the Environment at 100 E. coli per 100 millilitres of water.
Swimming in waters with E. coli levels greater than the provincial standard exposes the bather to increased risk of infections.
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