Marblehead beaches in good shape this summer

MARBLEHEAD – So far, so good.That’s the way Director of Public Health Wayne Attridge views the town’s beach situation this summer.A year ago at this time two town beaches – Grace Oliver’s Beach at the end of Beacon Street and Stramski Beach, located off West Shore Drive – were closed to swimmers for about two months due to high bacteria counts. In 2006 Gashouse Beach, located off Orne Street, made it three – and those three closures lasted nearly a month.Last week Attridge had to close Gashouse Beach, but he tested again and reopened it 24 hours later.”It was a high bacteria count, but it was a freakish type of thing,” Attridge said Wednesday. “Another beach less than 100 yards away tested fine.”Attridge was out taking water samples at the town’s beaches Wednesday morning and was expecting lab reports this evening. Although he remains “a little bit concerned about storm water runoff,” he had to admit, “So far they all look good.”Devereux Beach, the town’s main recreational beach off the Causeway that locals call its only Class A swimming beach, generally has a low bacteria count. It is the smaller beaches, the ones Attridge calls neighborhood swimming holes that have problems, usually when the warm weather begins.That may be one factor in the low bacteria counts so far, despite the usual amounts of spring rain.”The water is a little colder, in the low-to-mid 60s, and usually by now it’s in the mid-to-high 60,” Attridge said.In order for residents to help maintain low bacteria levels at the beaches, Attridge said dog owners should keep their dogs off the beaches and avoid putting fecal matter into catch basins, since catch basins drain to the beaches and the ocean.”If I do have a problem we have a very pro-active water and sewer superintendent, Dana Snow, who does follow-up tests on those problems,” Attridge added. “Right now we’re testing at Stramski Beach because we have a problem with something infiltrating the runoff, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”