CLARIFICATION: The Macomb County Health Dept. finally posted the most recent water sample results from Friday, which show Lake St. Clair Metropark beach safe for swimming. Anyone who checked the Health Dept. website over the weekend was told that the beach was off-limits due to pollution levels. Apparently the Health Department alerted beach personnel on Saturday of the new testing numbers so people who arrived on the beach area were allowed in the water.
On this traditional final weekend of the summer season, the Lake St. Clair Metropark beach in Harrison Township and the Memorial Park beach in St. Clair Shores are off-limits to swimming due to high pollution levels in the water.
At the Lake St. Clair Metropark (formerly Metro Beach), the swimming area has been closed since Monday and will remain shut down through the weekend because of high E. coli bacteria counts near the shoreline.
Memorial Park beach has been closed continuously since July 19, with the exception of a 5-day stretch in August, due to persistent pollution problems. On Saturday of last week, the contamination level was six times above the water safety standard.
Beach closings on Lake St. Clair are typically associated with sewer system overflows, though the sewage basins operated by Macomb County have not discharged into the lake since the rainstorms of Aug. 16. The Martin and Chapaton basins located on the St. Clair Shores lakefront, plus a sewer interceptor pipe located in the area, have dumped nearly 1.2 billion gallons of partially treated sewage into the lake so far this year.
Those discharges — a mix of rainwater and human sewage — are skimmed and chlorinated before being released into lake, typically for a dozen or more hours at a time.
When beaches suffer from troublesome E. coli levels over a span of time, they are also subject to closure because the 30-day average (the “geometric mean”) of bacteria counts is considered too high to be safe for swimming or contact with the water. That 30-day violation of clean-water standards is now in effect at the metropark and at Memorial Park.
Exposure to E. coli in swimming areas can cause nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and skin rashes.
Congresswoman Candice Miller, a candidate running in opposition to county Public Works Commissioner Anthony Marrocco in November, pounced on the news that the two main beaches are closed “until further notice” in a campaign press release.
“Macomb residents should be outraged. These beach closures are due to problems that should have been addressed years ago. This was preventable. Yet, here we are, on the final holiday weekend of the summer. It’s bright and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. And, the beaches are closed,” said the Harrison Township Republican.
“This must be Anthony Marrocco’s way of telling Macomb County residents ‘Happy Labor Day.’ Macomb County residents deserve to have a government that address problems and find solutions.”
Marrocco, the 24-year incumbent in charge of the sewer systems, has insisted for many years that the beach closings are due to bird droppings at the shoreline by ducks, geese and seagulls. The sewer overflows, the Ray Township Democrat insists, meet safety requirements.
The Public Works agency cites a 2005 study by an environmental consulting firm which found no evidence that the effluent from Martin and Chapaton had harmed the fish or plant life in the lake.
