Photo Credit: Courtesy of Chicago Park District
Chicago has many attractions: deep-dish pizza, President Barack Obama’s home, Buckingham Fountain and blues music. But most people don’t think of the city when they hear the word, “beaches.” Managed by the Chicago Park District, the 24 designated swim beaches along 26 miles of lakefront attract 25 million visitors during the summer months. The park district has become an aggressive beach manager over the years, implementing several beach-management practices to ensure the beaches stay safe and clean.
Flag Notification
For starters, the park district monitors the water quality at the swimming beaches with a three-tier alert system to issue swim bans and inform beachgoers of bacteria levels. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) support the notification system that calls for a swim advisory to be issued when readings of the indicator bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) falls between a certain point. E. coli is not harmful, but its presence indicates that other pathogens may be in the water.
Although many beach managers in other cities only test water quality once a week (the minimum recommended by the USEPA), the park district decided to use a more aggressive approach and test the swimming waters five days during the week, with necessary testing measures taken on the weekends if a swim ban or advisory is posted on a Friday.
