SWAMPSCOTT, MA — First came the concern. Then the mounting frustration turned to a persistent stream of outrage.
Now, finally, the groundswell of pressure to take urgent and meaningful action on the water conditions at Swampscott’s King’s Beach and Fisherman’s Beach has led to a spirit of collaboration among those who not long ago routinely butted heads over what, at times, may have seemed like an insurmountable challenge.
How Swampscott is attempting to create a data-driven understanding of beach water quality and how best to relay that information to residents and visitors may be a model for other cities and towns across the North Shore that have sewer outfall pipes in proximity to public swimming areas.
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Over the past year, the town has voted at town meeting to create a state sewer revolving fund to help correct long-ignored infrastructure issues, has raised stagnant sewer rates to pay for maintenance, and has dedicated a majority of its remaining American Rescue Plan Act allowance to sleeving the hundred-year-old pipes that lead to the outfalls.
Swampscott also created the Water Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee, which among its myriad of charges has conducted daily water testing at Fisherman’s Beach this summer with the results uploaded to a public dashboard that updates water safety levels in as close to real-time as practical at this time.
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“Activism has had a very important role in this,” Committee Chair Liz Smith, an outspoken advocate for more testing and signage surrounding the water quality at King’s Beach, told Patch. “But it has to have a mechanism to get things done. I think getting this committee formed in Swampscott has really pushed things forward.”
While the challenges at King’s Beach at the Swampscott/Lynn line — which Save The Harbor/Save The Bay’s annual survey has consistently shown to be the most polluted beach in Greater Boston and which was considered not safe for swimming nearly half the days last summer — are both daunting and well-documented, the Committee has focused on the more populated Fisherman’s Beach where the safety worries are just starting to be examined.
Results of daily testing this summer have largely shown that the beach water should be avoided after any heavy rain storm. Beyond that, testing has shown that the public areas on one side of the pier are mostly safe for swimming, while the private areas on the other side of the pier are more volatile, and the area directly in front of the Marshall Street outfall — much the same as at Stacey’s Brook on King’s Beach — is rarely suitable for human contact.
“The main thing we are learning thus far is that we need to be more proactive about telling folks to stay out of the water for 48 hours after heavy rain and we need to tell folks they should not be wading, walking in the water, anything, near those outfall streams,” Smith said. “In general, it’s good advice to avoid beaches near outfall pipes. Not all beaches have them. But many do. What we’ve learned is that in the testing near the Marshall outfall is that the (bacteria count) is extremely high and it’s every single day.”
While the Swampscott daily testing is aimed to provide more timely results than the weekly testing required at state Department of Recreation and Conservation beaches such as King’s Beach, it still has a 24-hour turnaround time that carries limitations.
For example, the dashboard results on a Friday are based on Thursday’s testing, and will not account for the effects of an overnight downpour that damages water quality. By Saturday or Sunday, the effects of that downpour may be diluted, but the dashboard will show the negative effects of the torrential rain two days prior.
Using a wider view, the results confirm the detrimental influence of heavy rains and stormwater runoff that many do not realize when they head to the beach when the weather clears for an ostensibly beautiful summer weekend after a stormy Thursday and Friday.
“We’re doing everything we can to bring information, bring data-driven information to the discussion, not emotional decisions on where we should test and how often we test,” Smith said. “We are leading the charge here.”
Smith added that while Swampscott is doing what it can, there needs to be a more statewide, or at least regional, approach to water quality testing and signage to indicate the presence of outfall pipes at all beaches.
“Each town having to go about this individually is not the most efficient way to do it,” she said. “Not requiring signs at the outfalls is a weakness in the regulations.”
She said the Swampscott committee — which consists of eight volunteer members, four alternates who she said have attended every meeting, and three dedicated college interns who help with the daily testing — is sharing its results with the state Department of Public Health in hopes of affecting actions on a more regional level.
“It’s really quite amazing to me what we’ve been able to do as a town,” she said. “I think we’ve made a lot of progress.
“But we still have a lot to learn.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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