Make city fit for swimming
OUR VIEW
This Tuesday's "mass swim" at Richardson Beach is politically motivated.
As the column on today's Forum page points out, Mayor Harvey Rosen promised during his 2005 re-election bid to restore the downtown city beach to its former level of accessibility. Though plans are afoot, nothing concrete has happened to make that restoration possible, either in the water or on land with the historic Richardson Bath House.
Kingston is generally losing its public waterfront access, and generations of Kingstonians no longer understand its recreational potential. The deserted Richardson Beach is a perfect case in point.
This week, four other beaches were shut down by the public health authority after testing revealed highlevelsof E. colibacteria.
Yesterday, public health issued an update. Lake Ontario Park beach had re-opened. But the news release also noted that the "beach at Crerar Park, off Park Crescent and south of Days Road and Front Road in the Reddendale neighbourhood in Kingston, and Rotary Park Beach, in Kingston, remain posted unsafe for swimming after water samples >to show higher than acceptable levels of E. coli organisms."
Is it any wonder that a facility like Richardson Beach goes unused? One can never be sure if the water is clean even if you dare to navigate the slimy rocks to wade into it.
Perhaps most disconcerting about the contamination is that no one could pinpoint the source.
Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health tests about 50 swimming areas in the region. But the agency could not say for sure what was causing the pollution at the four city beaches.
"Our best assessment is probably the presence of waterfowl," said medical officer of health Dr. Ian Gemmill.
In other words, bird poop combined with poor water circulation.
Gemmill ruled out the possibility of human sewage contamination and he was seconded in that opinion by Jim Keech of Utilities Kingston. Keech said his department allowed four small bypasses in June and July - diverting raw sewage directly into the lake when rainfall overloads treatment plants -but that these were "not significant."
For now, the source of the E. coli isn't known. Public health only tests and posts warnings. The city can't readily identify any of its facilities as a possible source. And the provincial environment ministry, according to spokesman Michel Finn, only steps in when there is an "obvious source of the bacterial contamination."
These groups have not contacted each other about the issue and the lethargy can only be explained one way: Swimming at public Lake Ontario beaches is clearly a low priority.
The pattern of North American development, with its construction of large buildings and facilities, turns public focus inward at the expense of shared outdoor spaces. Apart from the revitalization of its historic market square, a wonderful public space, Kingston has certainly transferred most of its energies into the building, planning and saving of enclosed arenas and swimming pools.
It's time to look outward. The real outdoor social season is limited here due to climate, which makes the time people can swim in Lake Ontario that much more precious.
Richardson Beach needs to be restored. The mayor promised as much.
And the city also needs to take responsibility for finding and correcting the lake's ongoing pollution problem, for the health of its citizens.