Beach water testing at local beaches is only a couple of weeks away, and the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) is updating the public on how they can view the results.
Pre-season beach assessments are currently underway, and weekly testing will begin on May 28 and will run until August at eight local beaches.
Seasonal beach monitoring includes surveillance of water and weather conditions, as well as weekly water sampling to test for E. coli which could be harmful to swimmers.
New this year will be a Predictive Beach Model tool. This tool will use current weather conditions, environmental factors such as rainfall, temperature, and past beach data to predict future water quality results.
While the weekly tests will still take place, it would only reflect the condition of the water from the time of the sample. This new model gives residents a daily update and can help residents make an informed decision on whether to use participating public beaches for swimming.
The Health Unit's Environmental Health Manager Jenny Tan says the weekly testing will remain the same.
"All the samples will be taken on Wednesday's, and then those samples will then be sent to a lab, and then the lab provides us with results and then those results will be published on our website on Friday's."
She says the predictive tool helps residents who are unsure if they should swim in the water.
"It takes in a lot of data points and it will predict the E. coli results, so the risk level will indicate low risk, moderate, or high risk, and all that information will be again posted to provide more information to the community so that they can make an informed decision."
Tan says the weekly sampling results will take precedence over the predictive tool.
"If our routine sampling if the results suggest that it is resulting in a closure, what would happen would be for those predictive results, the indicator would be 'beach is closed' to lessen the confusion on different predictive model over the beach. If the beach is closed, the beach is closed."
The local beaches tested include Sandpoint Beach, Lakeshore Lakeview Park West Beach, Point Pelee North West Beach, Seacliff Park Beach, Cedar Island Beach, Cedar Beach, Colchester Beach and Holiday Beach.
The beaches included in the Predictive Beach Model tool include Sandpoint Beach, Lakeshore Lakeview Park West Beach, Point Pelee North West Beach, Colchester Beach, and Holiday Beach.