State health officials have a new system for evaluating the water quality at Lake Erie beaches that should give people a better idea of whether it's safe to swim.
Huntington Beach, west of Cleveland, is the first beach on Lake Erie to make same-day reports available to the public, replacing a previous system that relied on day-old water-sample data.
The new technology could be ready for other beaches next year.
Storms flush everything from animal waste to lawn fertilizer into the lake, health officials said. Children, the elderly and people with immune deficiencies are most at risk of becoming ill from bacteria.
To give waders and swimmers real-time information on water quality, a Cuyahoga County health official goes to Huntington Beach each morning, collects wave height and rainfall data over the previous 48 hours and plugs them into a computer model. Samples also are taken to measure the water's clarity.
The computer, using specific geographic data for the beach, predicts whether the water quality that day will be good or poor.
The report is still just an estimate, and it's not 100 percent accurate, officials said.
"It's like a weather forecast," said Donna Francy, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geologic Survey's Ohio Water Service Center in Columbus, who developed the model along with co-workers at the center. "They say there is a chance of rain. Are they right all the time?"
Francy said the system is better than previous methods.
The information is posted on signs at the beach. It's also available online at http://www.ohionowcast.info.
Other beaches are still using the old system, where health officials collect water samples during the week, then incubate colonies of bacteria for 24 hours. If the bacteria levels are above a safe amount, warning signs are posted at the beaches.
The drawback is that the public learns after the fact that the water was bad the previous day.
Ohio does not close beaches, leaving it up to the swimmers to decide whether to go into the water. Various pollutants can cause flu-like symptoms, such as vomiting, diarrhea, fevers and abdominal cramps.
Health officials say the safest measure is to stay out of the lake after a heavy rain because of pollutants and sickness-causing bacteria in storm water.
Researchers plan to introduce same-day water quality reports to five other Lake Erie beaches over the next few years. Other beaches being studied include Lakeview Beach in Lorain, Edgewater Beach and Villa Angela Beach in Cleveland, and Lakeshore Beach in Ashtabula.
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Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com
