Grace Oliver Beach remains shut down, as of press time, due to a geometric mean failure based on lab results taken last week.
The Board of Health announced through a post on the Police Department’s Facebook page that the beach has has been closed for the second time in less than a week last Thursday evening.
The beach’s bathing water was deemed unacceptable based on standards set in the state Sanitary Code regarding indicator organisms. For marine water, the indicator organism is Enterococci, and cannot exceed 104 colonies per 100 milliliters. The geometric mean must not exceed 35 colonies per 100 ml for the five most recent Enterococci levels in the same bathing season.
The mean of Grace Oliver’s last five tests came out to 42.87, including a high of 142 colonies per 100 ml on Wednesday, Aug. 2. Test results on Thursday came back with 20 colonies per 100 ml.
The high bacterial levels are the result of runoff from the amount of rainfall that has hit the area this summer. Heavy rain mixes with debris and chemicals on land, which is then carried into the ocean, causing runoff containing unsafe levels of bacteria.
In a July 11 meeting, Health Director Andrew Petty said that since the summer began, there had been 50 beach closures across the state, making up approximately 4.5% of all beaches.
Board of Health member Joanne Miller said that she has seen a few beach closures in the region in past years due to bad rainstorms, but this summer has been significantly worse.
“Looking at the storms, we can all agree there have been some very frequent, significant storms that are creating some of these problems,” Miller said. “There has been so much runoff, that’s why we monitor these beaches because this runoff can influence the water safety.”
The Board of Health closed the beach on two weeks ago after results from samples taken from the previous day contained unsafe bacterial levels. The beach was opened a day later after new tests came back with lower bacterial counts, only to be shut down again six days later.
The Board of Health said on Tuesday that a resampling would take place on Wednesday and that it hopes to have results back by Thursday, adding that the beach’s reopening status will depend on the results from that test.