There is something in the water. And Plattsburgh officials have a conundrum on their hands trying to figure out why there are spikes in bacteria occurring at the city beach.
During a normal season, the water at the Plattsburgh City Beach is tested every two weeks. But water samples have exceeded safety standards for swimming and the beach has been closed for the past 6 days. Plattsburgh Superintendent of Recreation Steve Peters explains that there have been spikes occurring in the measurements. “We test for a bacteria called enterococcus which is found in human fecal matter. It’s also found in soils. It’s found in plant life and other organic material. When it’s present there may be fecal coliform in the water. It’s an indicator essentially. The enterococcus bacteria itself is no danger to humans but it’s something that we use as a indicator and so when we get a reading of 61 parts per million or more then we close the beach. In this case we’ve received a number of readings that have gone up and down that became a little bit more of a concern as we’ve moved on.”
A normal reading is typically between 6 and 20 parts per million. Recent measurements have spiked between 61 to 200 parts per million. City of Plattsburgh Environmental Manager Jon Ruff assembled a team to try to identify potential sources of contamination, but there could be more than 20. “There’s a lot of potential sources. The wastewater plant’s been running fine. We’re confident that’s not a source. There’s stormwater culverts. There’s Scomotion Creek. There’s boats, there’s geese, there’s ducks. There’s a lot of potential contamination sources out there so that’s one of the things that makes it really difficult. You start to throw in the weather conditions and temperature changes and all that and it might be a situation where we can never say this is what caused it.”
Adding to the mystery, the adjacent adjoining state beach doesn’t have a problem. Nor do some of the other nearby properties as described by Clinton County Health Department Director of Environmental Health John Kanoza. “We’ve got beaches in close proximity to each other. The Golden Gate, a little bit south of the city beach, that’s also had the high counts. City beach had some high counts, not quite as high as the Golden Gate. Cumberland Head State Park has had lower counts, under the 61. They have not been required to close. Is there a correlation there?”
Plattsburgh Mayor James Calnon says that’s one reason to conduct more intensive water testing. “We’re trying to get a better sense for what the cause of really the rapid changes over the last week. That’s the part that is really kind-of disturbing. Is that without a triggering event we really want to trace down why is this happening and try to get a sense for it.”
The beach is scheduled to close following Labor Day weekend but officials say water testing will continue beyond the closure. Compliance tests will occur every day until readings are clear. Investigative sampling will occur for at least four weeks.
