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'No swimming' advisory issued in West Van… is your local beach safe?

This week, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority issued a "no swimming" advisory for three West Vancouver beaches due to high levels of E.coli, which can increase risk of gastrointestinal illness.

However, Lauren Hornor, executive director of Fraser Riverkeeper, says health authorities need to improve in making water quality information public.

While some B.C. health authorities immediately post fecal coliform bacteria levels online after receiving test results for beaches,* others either do not receive regular information or do not make those figures public unless levels are dangerously high, Hornor said.

That means people do not know pollution levels at some of the region's most popular beaches, including White Rock, Cultus Lake, Crescent Beach, Alice Lake Park Beach in Squamish and Camp Jubilee on Indian Arm, Hornor said.

"Those are the top five beaches that are very well used, but not tested or the information is not publicly available," she said.

Fraser Riverkeeper is urging British Columbians to call on local health authorities to provide reliable, consistent water quality information.

The main offenders, according to Fraser Riverkeeper, are Fraser Health Authority, which receives test results from Metro Vancouver, but does not make results publicly available online, and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which meticulously reports on Vancouver beaches but has not yet posted any water quality data for Garibaldi, Squamish or the Sunshine Coast.

Interior Health Authority posts only safe or unsafe notifications, instead of coliform bacteria counts,* and Fraser Riverkeeper is working to obtain more specific numbers. Vancouver Island Health Authority posts the bacteriological test results of water samples here (click "Reports.)

All available results are included in Swim Guide, a free app developed by Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, which gives information and pollution counts for beaches across Canada, the U.S and, this year, parts of Mexico.

Lack of information means health risks, said Hornor, who has two young children and worries about their beach safety.

"When there's E.coli and sewage or feces, whether from humans or animals, it causes all sorts of problems," Hornor said said.

Effects can range from inflamed eyes and itchy skin to serious gastrointestinal illness, with children and seniors most susceptible to infection. Harmful pathogens can enter the body through cuts or openings such as the mouth, ears and nose, meaning that even splashing around at the edge of the water can be a problem.

Hornor, an environmental lawyer, said two years of letters and phone calls to Fraser Health Authority have not produced an adequate response and frustrated members of Fraser Riverkeeper are preparing to submit a freedom-of-information request.

However, Gordon Stewart, the health authority's health protection manager, said changes are on the way and numbers should be posted by late summer.

"We want to get it cracked this year. We are doing minor tweaks to the website," he said. "We are making sure that, when we post stuff, it's accurate and people are not confused by it."

Metro Vancouver discharges more than 30-billion litres of untreated waste water annually into the Fraser River and Strait of Georgia from old combined sewage outfall pipes. When it rains heavily, sewage often bypasses treatment and heads straight into the river or ocean.

Health Canada and B.C. consider anything above 200 coliform units in 100 millilitres of water to be unsafe, but Fraser Riverkeeper follows the Ontario guideline in deeming more than 100 coliform units per 100 millilitres of water to be unacceptable.

Health Canada estimates that, using its guidelines, one or two per cent of swimmers will become ill from contamination. That means about 100,000 Canadians a year get sick from swimming in polluted waters.

Check out The Tyee's Guide to Vancouver's Cleanest (and Dirtiest) Beaches here.

Judith Lavoie reports for DeSmog Canada. A longer version of this story was originally published on DeSmog Canada.

*Correction, July 28, 11:55 a.m.: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the information that Vancouver Island Health Authority provides.

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