A popular summer pastime came with a bit of a warning for some beachgoers in Windsor-Essex.
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit issued 31 water quality warnings and three beach closures during the 2026 swimming season. That’s up from 25 warnings and five closures last year.
The health unit monitored seven public beaches between May 27 and August 26, testing weekly for E. coli bacteria.
Lakeview Park West Beach in Lakeshore was impacted the most, with a total of eight warnings and two closures. That’s an increase from just two warnings and no closures in 2025. Colchester Beach also saw an increase, with seven warnings compared to five last year, while Point Pelee had three warnings.
The health unit also expanded its predictive water quality modelling program this year, moving from four beaches in 2025 to all seven monitored beaches, along with East Park Beach on Pelee Island.
Jenny Tan, Environmental Health Manager at WECHU, says water quality can be affected by several environmental conditions.
“That could be temperature related, it could be weather related, conditions of the water, all those sorts of things. Although we did see kind of a difference for one of the beaches... there’s not one factor that could explain what led to that increase.”
She says bringing the predictive model to Pelee Island was particularly valuable.
“Although we don’t do routine beach sampling on the island, this predictive modeling gave an opportunity for the residents, for visitors on the island to get some information on at least one of the beaches that is most frequently used on the island.”
Tan says each year ranges when it comes to what beaches have warnings and closures.
“It fluctuates all the time. So this year we saw kind of an increase compared from last year for the number of warnings for one of the beaches. There’s numerous factors that could play into why there is more warnings for one particular beach from one year versus another year.”
The report also showed that the predictive model had either optimal or moderate agreement with actual water quality results 92.4 per cent of the time.
The health unit says the model will continue to complement regular beach testing, rather than replace it.
The health unit says it will continue refining the model in 2027, while also working to increase public awareness and encourage more people to use its online beach water quality reports.