Bay Beach Contaminated, Off Limits
Volume 49, Issue 6
By David Crohn

Higher-than-normal bacteria levels have prompted local officials to close the Great South Bay in Ocean Beach to swimmers until further notice.

During routine tests in the bay near Ocean Beach’s water treatment plant last Friday, Suffolk County health officials found more than twice the average amount of Enterococci, a bacteria commonly found in the intestinal tract of warm-blooded animals. Enterococci is not in itself harmful but appears alongside bacteria that can cause gastroenteritis and ear, nose and throat problems, said Robert Waters, Supervisor of the Bureau of Marine Resources for Suffolk County.

According to guidelines laid out by the Envirosnmental Protection Agency, the average number of colony forming units per 100 milliliters (CPUs) for a single sample is 104; 252 CPUs were found at the effluent boil, the point where treated sewage from the plant is dumped into the bay.

No cause had been determined as of Tuesday, but an investigation is ongoing.

“We will sample as much as we can to try and figure out what’s causing the problem at the beach,” Waters said.

Besides the treatment plant, a possible culprit could be raw sewage dumped into the bay by boaters docked in the Ocean Beach Marina and elsewhere.

“There are a lot of boats in the area and that raises a red flag for us. People just dump their toilets directly into the bay,” Waters said.

Unless a boat is more than three miles from the shore, sewage onboard must be stored in a holding tank and then discharged at a pump-out station, which costs nothing. The nearest one is at Captree State Park, about five miles from the marina.

Officials say there is no connection between the closure in Ocean Beach and those in Camp Baiting Hollow and Lake Ronkonkoma, which were most likely caused by animal excrement.

Waters said this is the first time in recent memory that the bay beach has been closed; it is preferred by many local bathers as a calm, quiet alternative to the ocean on the south side of Fire Island.