Although Ontario public beaches must be open for 95% of the swimming season under provincial guidelines, outdated sewage treatment systems are pumping E. coli into several beaches, which are falling far short of the voluntary standards.
In a report to be released today, an environmental group is calling on the province to do more to ensure Ontarians can seek relief from the heat at any public beach in their area.
The report names three beaches -- Bayfront Park in Hamilton, Rotary Park in Ajax and Lakeview Beach West in Oshawa -- that were closed for the entire month of July.
"People in Ontario have the right to go swimming and that needs to be protected," said Mark Mattson, president of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.
Beaches are posted by the local public health unit as unsafe for swimmers when water testing determines there are 100 coliform units of E. coli in 100 millilitres of water.
Under provincial guidelines covering sewage treatment plants, they are to affect public beaches for no more than five per cent of the swimming season -- June to August -- due to E. coli.
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper said that's a good standard but the limits should be mandatory instead of being voluntary guidelines.
"Cities need to be told it's not optional," said Mattson.
He said if the rules were enforced, beaches could be open to the public more often.
"It's not something that's legally enforceable," said Mark Rabbior, a spokesperson with the Ministry of the Environment. "But it's a guideline we'd like to see be met."
Rabbior said in many municipalities with older sewage systems, storm sewers and sanitary sewers are connected. During heavy rains, storm water runoff combines with sewage from people's homes, creating a volume too large for treatment plants to handle.
In those cases, extra sewage material bypasses the system and it's released before being fully treated.
Rabbior said much of the E. coli problem could be fixed if the old sewage infrastructure is replaced.
"Separation of the sewers is an important step to take, but certainly it's a very costly step as well, because you have to retrofit all the infrastructure that is essentially existing under the city."
Rabbior said cities like Toronto and Hamilton already have plans to improve their sewage infrastructure, allocating hundreds of millions of dollars over several years.
