Beach Closures
In 2004, 13% of monitored Great Lakes beaches were closed 10% of the time. However, even with careful monitoring, E. coli requires a 24 hour incubation period, resulting in people unintentionally swimming in contaminated water, lost revenues and beach time. Contamination by bacteria, viruses and protozoa in recreational waters are a major health risk and having accurate measures of water quality is critical to human health in coastal areas
The Center for Excellence for Great Lakes and Human Health is developing new, more accurate methods for beach closure forecasting. The Center will combine GLERL expertise on lake transport modeling and USGS and MSU expertise on microbiological and statistical analysis of beach contamination to provide accurate beach closure forecasting.
Great Lakes Beach Health Research Needs: Workshop Summary technical memorandum
For the latest information on beach closures in the Great Lakes, please see the Great Lakes BeachCast web site.
Beach Closures and Human Health Brochure (.pdf)
