(Posted 5:30 a.m., July 21)
Lack of rain results in banner summer at Petrie Island beaches
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

It's been a banner summer so far at Petrie Island's three main beaches as a lack of rain has kept e-coli levels down resulting in only two days during which the beaches have been closed.

By comparison the beaches were closed a total of 17 days last July alone. Those closures were due in large part to heavy rain events which caused sewage overflows in the city's stormwater system.

So far this summer, there's only been two heavy rain events. The sunny skies and hot weather are the perfect conditions to keep bacteria levels down. As a result the Petrie Island beaches have only been closed twice. By comparison Westboro Beach has been closed five days, Mooney's Bay has been closed twice and Britannia Beach has been closed once..

Despite the ideal conditions, some people are still reluctant to swim at Petrie Island, chosing instead to just lie on the beach. A large part of the reason for their reluctance is the reports of high bacteria levels in previous summers and the seemingly endless stream of news articles about sewage overflows.

The truth is that the Ottawa River is not as bad as the media would make it out to be, and the water off Petrie Island is as clean as anywhere else in the city.

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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