By Nathan Duke
The city halted swimming at Douglas Manor Beach and Breezy Point in the Rockaways last weekend after water at the beaches did not meet acceptable safety standards, a spokeswoman for the city Health Department said.
Swimming at Douglas Manor Beach was suspended Sunday, but the boardwalk and the sandy shoreline remained open, the spokeswoman said. The beach reopened Monday, but with a recommendation for visitors not to swim.
“The water standard there did not meet the acceptable standards,” the Health Department spokeswoman said. “The DOH will continue to sample the water until it meets acceptable standards.”
The agency regularly analyzes water quality to determine whether it is safe for swimming. The city releases advisories against getting into the water if beaches are compromised by weather conditions or increased pollution levels.
The Douglas Manor Association maintains the waterfront at the beach. But association secretary Jamie Sutherland said the group will not even begin to post lifeguards at the beach until after July 4 because the water there is still cold.
The beach is consistently closed for varying periods of time each summer due to elevated bacteria levels, which some investigators believe is caused by pollution being washed into the water by rainstorms. A marine pathologist who conducted a study of the waterway in 2007 said he believed that fecal coliform was polluting the beach.
Sutherland said the Douglas Manor Association enforces city swimming suspension rules at the beach. But some community residents tend to ignore city recommendations, she said.
“There are people living in the community who are diehard swimmers and they’ve been doing it for more than 50 years,” she said. “They don’t always trust readings as necessarily scientific in terms of reflecting the quality of the water.”
A spokeswoman for the city Department of Environmental Protection said the Douglaston beach’s closure was not related to the suspension of swimming at Coney Island last weekend. That beach was closed Saturday by the city after a large amount of sea water entered the sewer near Coney Island and caused raw sewage to be released into the local waterway, the spokeswoman said.
Other city beaches that were closed last weekend by the department include Breezy Point in the Rockaways, Manhattan Beach and several Brooklyn beaches, the department said.
A 2008 study by the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council found that Douglas Manor, which was closed from June 13−18 last year, had been closed more than any other borough beach due to high bacteria counts in the water. The council found that rainstorms often caused pollution to be washed into the waterway.
The study found Douglas Manor exceeded acceptable bacteria counts by 20 percent, while Breezy Point exceeded levels by 8 percent.
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e−mail at nduke@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 156.
