A pair of beaches in South Boston were safe to swim in every day in summer 2023 while King’s Beach in Lynn was only open to swimmers about half the time, according to a report compiled by the advocacy group Save the Harbor/Save the Bay.
The group announced its 2023 Beach Season Water Quality Report Card at a press conference on Revere Beach featuring U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark, of Massachusetts, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, and a number of other local officials. In the report, Save the Harbor/Save the Bay used data from the Department of Conservation and Recreation to survey the water quality of public beaches in Lynn, Nahant, Revere, Winthrop, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, Quincy and Hull.
Across each of the beaches, water quality was down in 2023, largely due to rainy and wet conditions last summer — the group notes that 2023 was the rainiest summer in the Boston area since 1955. In all, the beaches scored a rating of 85%, down from 93% the year before.
An inch of rain can be enough to flush bacteria built up in drains and stormwater pipes out into ocean waters, leading to a public health concern. But, Save the Harbor Deputy Director Kristen Berry said beaches are generally “clean as ever” 24 hours later as a result of twice daily tide cycles.
Both Pleasure Bay and City Point in South Boston landed perfect scores for 2023 and across each of the past six years. King’s Beach was by far an outlier with its 55% rating — the next lowest was Tenean Beach in South Boston with a 73% rating.
The score for King’s Beach was a “record low” in the Boston area, the report notes.
Save the Harbor Executive Director Chris Mancini called cleaning up the beach a “difficult and complex infrastructure challenge.”
Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s annual water quality report card grades beaches in greater Boston.Save the Harbor/Save the Bay
Clark, who represents Revere, lauded the perseverance and resilience of the region’s beaches.
“That resilience was a policy choice — the result of transformational investments in Boston Harbor. Now, we have to make another choice: mobilizing unprecedented action to brace these treasures against the impacts of climate change,” she said in a statement. “That’s why I’m fighting every day to bring home our share of the historic climate investments we’ve enacted under President Biden.”
The system that notifies the public of unsafe conditions at beaches in the state is imperfect, Mancini noted.
Beaches across the state use a posting and flagging system to notify the public to high bacteria levels in the water. But, the technology used to test the waters takes 24 hours to return results, meaning the posting is out of date by the time it goes up.
Mancini urged anyone planning to go to the beach to wait a day after significant rainfall to return to the water.
DCR Commissioner Brian Arrigo, the former mayor of Revere, said the department is committed to ensuring “our Metro Boston beaches continue to be some of the cleanest in the country.”
Mancini said he hopes the report card will “give people the confidence to get out and enjoy our spectacular state beaches.”