By GREGORY ZELLER //
A leading environmental group has updated its water-quality ratings off more than 200 Long Island Sound beaches – with several Long Island beaches earning top marks and others barely making the grade.
Just in time for the unofficial start of summer, New Haven, Conn.- and Larchmont-based nonprofit Save the Sound has freshened up its Sound Health Explorer, a comprehensive rating system exploring waterfronts along Long Island’s north shore and Connecticut’s south shore.
The Sound Health Explorer works in conjunction with water-quality scientists familiar with the Long Island Sound and with local and regional health departments in New York and Connecticut, which collect fecal-indicator samples during the swimming season.
Fecal-indicator bacterial concentrations help determine whether water is safe for swimming; higher counts are associated with dangerous waterborne pathogens, often related to untreated sewage or large injections of polluted stormwater.
Peter Linderoth: Natural remedies.
Dating back to the 2003 launch of the Sound Health Explorer, precipitation totals across the Long Island Sound watershed measured between May 2021 and August 2021 were the highest for any three-month period on record – and had a clear effect on Save the Sound’s most recent water-quality ratings, which were revealed Thursday.
Overall, the report card showcases solid grades: Most sound beaches on the Long Island side earned a B grade or higher, including three Nassau County beaches (Southside Beach, The Creek Beach and Ransom Beach) and six Suffolk County beaches (Centerport Beach, Hobart Beach-Inlet, Sound View Beach Association Beach, McCabe’s Beach, Orient Beach State Park and Southold Beach) earning shiny A-plus marks.
Connecticut also registered six A-plus beaches, while three Long Island Sound beaches within the New York City limits – West Fordham Street Association Beach, Locust Point Yacht Club and Orchard Beach – did the same.
The water quality off White Cross Fishing Club in the Bronx (D), the Trinity Danish Young People’s Society in the Bronx (D-plus), Nassau County’s Crescent Beach (D) and Nassau County’s Manorhaven Beach (D-minus) dragged down Long Island’s average, while Westchester County’s Harbor Island Beach (D), Connecticut’s Byram Park (D-plus) and the Nutmeg State’s Rocky Neck State Park Beach (D-plus) faltered to the north.
The only F on the map fell on Douglas Manor Association Beach in Queens, where 75 percent of samples failed the fecal-indicator test after wet weather and 42 percent of samples failed after dry weather, according to Save the Sound.
While the data presented by the Sound Health Explorer is mostly positive, beachgoers should pay special attention to water-quality alerts in the less-pristine areas, according to Save the Sound Water Quality Director Peter Linderoth, who blamed the mixed-bag results squarely on the overdevelopment of coastal regions.
“If your favorite beach received a poor overall grade with associated poor wet-weather marks, you need to look no further than the ground under your feet,” Linderoth said Thursday. “Beaches in areas with higher coverages of surfaces impervious to water – like roads, parking lots and roofs – tend to be impacted more by stormwater runoff than areas with less of these surfaces.
“This situation can be remedied,” he added. “Save the Sound strongly advocates and implements projects that offer nature-based solutions to this issue, like rain gardens to naturally treat stormwater runoff.”
