High Bacteria Levels Are Cause For Concern On These Jersey Shore

I just caught wind of some swim advisories and with the heat wave we're experiencing I thought it was important info to pass along to you. Enterococci is not our friend and it has been detected in uncomfortable levels in multiple popular swimming spots.

Listen to Shannon Holly mornings on 94.3 The Point and download our free 94.3 The Point app.

So experts are seeing high levels of enterococci bacteria which come from the intestinal tracts of warm-blooded animals...like humans. Not good.

This uptick in bacteria levels may be a result of storm water runoff, or sewage dumped from boats as well as natural causes like wildlife waste. The maximum allowable level is 104 colonies of Enterococci bacteria per 100 milliliters (I know, scientific right?) anything higher than that and the local health agency has to issue a swimming advisory by law.

The beaches with advisories as this point are on Barnegat Bay in Lavallette and Seaside Heights. The Brooklyn Avenue beach in Lavallette and the Hancock Avenue beach in Seaside Heights are among five beaches that had unacceptable levels as of this week's tests.

The initial round of tests were on Monday, and all of the beaches in question were re-tested yesterday. The Lavallette water tests showed 120 colonies per 100 milliliters of water. The Seaside Heights bay beach exceeded 600 colonies per 100 milliliters of water.

So if you were headed to any of these beaches you should re-route for now. Beaches will be closed to swimming if two consecutive samples show failing results. We'll have results from the second round of tests by this afternoon.

Read more from the original source here.