Blue Flag flies over Woodbine Beach

[attach]4552[/attach]Once again, Woodbine Beach has earned Blue Flag designation as a world-class place to swim.

The Blue Flag is an internationally recognized label given to beaches that meet certain standards of water quality and safety. This year, eight of Toronto’s 11 beaches were awarded the Blue Flag.

The good news for Beachers is that Woodbine is consistently ranked as one of the city’s cleanest beaches.

“Woodbine Beach has some of the best water quality for a couple of reasons,” said Lou Di Gironimo, general manager of Toronto Water. “First, there’s limited outfalls that discharge in that area so it doesn’t get impacted by flow that comes off of the city.

“Also, the currents in that area generally flow from east to west across and so you get better movement of water.”

Despite being recognized as having a Blue Flag designation, Woodbine Beach has a hard time shaking Lake Ontario’s dirty reputation.

“I think the issue of water quality in Lake Ontario is an issue that the public is still grappling with,” said Di Gironimo. “We’ve seen improvements in water quality over the past few decades but unfortunately, I think, in the public mind they still think of Lake Ontario as being very, very polluted.”

Woodbine Beach benefits from being located near open, circulating water and away from the mouth of any rivers. However, overflow from the sewers still posed a problem until the 1990s.

At that time sewer systems in the area were often unable to handle the high levels of storm water and raw sewage was dumped into the lake. However, with the installation of detention tanks to capture the excess flow it solved the problem.

“(The tanks) store it until the storm is over and then it gets discharged into the sewer and sent to the treatment plant,” said Di Gironimo.

The city’s parks department has a beach-grooming program in place to clear debris from the sand and even employs a dog patrol, which directs geese and other water foul away from swimming areas. The city does not take any special measures to clean the water.

“With respect to the water quality for Woodbine, there’s really not much we do there,” Di Gironimo said. “The work’s been done and now it’s nature taking over.”

Nature has done a fine job according to one group of beach-goers enjoying the water on a hot and sunny afternoon.

“First time when I went to Woodbine Beach I thought it was a real sea,” said Seemin Kang, a Korean student here studying English and regular Woodbine Beach user. “I didn’t believe it was a lake.

“I think it’s very clean and very peaceful and very safe.”

Kang’s only complaint was that the water was cold.

Water quality testing is done daily at all of Toronto’s 11 beaches. As of press time, Woodbine Beach is one of only two beaches in the city to have met provincial safety standards for swimming every day since June 5, when the city began posted E. coli test results for this season.

Daily water quality tests can be viewed on the city’s website at toronto.ca/beach/index.htm and then clicking E. coli level history.