LYNN — At Thursday evening’s Friends of Lynn and Nahant Beach meeting, Mayor Jared Nicholson outlined ongoing efforts to improve water quality at King’s Beach, detailing infrastructure repairs, research initiatives, and the search for a long-term solution to persistent bacterial contamination.
Speaking to community members and advocates, Nicholson emphasized the issue’s complexity and shared responsibility across jurisdictions.
“King’s Beach is a multi-jurisdictional issue in that it’s both Lynn and Swampscott,” Nicholson said, citing involvement from the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the state Department of Public Health, the Department of Environmental Protection, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
He added that while the beach is state-owned, “the pipes are the Lynn Water and Sewer Commission, which, as you all know, is a separate agency, although of course works very closely with the city.”
Despite that complexity, Nicholson stressed the city’s commitment. “We’ve taken the position that this is a tremendously important issue to our residents,” he said.
“And therefore we wanna make sure that we are doing whatever we can to get this beach clean and open for as much time as possible,” he added.
He described it as a “huge group effort,” crediting local, state, and federal partners, along with advocacy organizations like Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, and highlighting community input.
“All of you and your questions and suggestions and feedback,” Nicholson said, was a part of the process.
Nicholson focused heavily on source elimination, which is identifying and fixing contamination sources as the top priority.
On the Lynn side, the issue largely stems from illicit connections in a sewer system converted from combined to separated decades ago. “The pipes are relatively new,” Nicholson explained.
“The issue is illicit connections… that might’ve been missed… or illicit connections that have been added illegally since then,” he stated.
Nearly the entire drainage system has been inspected using closed-circuit television. “Of the 20 or so miles… I think all but a half mile had been (CC)TV’ed,” he said.
So far, seven illicit connections have been found, and “they’ve taken them right out.”
Officials from the Lynn Water and Sewer have also conducted targeted sampling and door-to-door outreach in potential hotspots, including dye testing near the former Marshall Middle School.
In one case, Nicholson recalled a moment when a tenant wasn’t comfortable with an official entering, so he explained what needed to happen, “and she went and put the dye in her toilet herself… which had got the same result.”
Similar canvassing is planned this spring. “This work… will just continue until someone comes up with a better system,” Nicholson said, noting current methods provide only “a snapshot of the system as it exists at the moment.”
Beyond source control, Nicholson highlighted a “complementary solution,” ultraviolet (UV) disinfection, tested in summer 2025.
“The pilot was successful in the sense that the beach was open a lot more frequently than it had been in prior years,” he said. “When it was working, the water that was coming out of it was clean.”
However, the pilot also raised new questions. “There were still days… the effluence of the water coming out of it was clean, and the beach was dirty,” Nicholson said.
“So there’s something happening between the water coming out of the UV system and the water that people wanna swim in,” he said.
That aligns with observations from environmental advocates, including Chris Mancini of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, who has noted bacteria spikes between the outfall and the beach, suggesting additional contamination sources.
To better understand those gaps, Lynn and Swampscott will launch a joint study this summer examining sediment, water flow, turbidity, and bacteria.
“The questions we’re asking is one about the sediment… the flow testing… more evaluation of the turbidity… and obviously the bacteria,” Nicholson said.
The study will run from May through September and help determine the feasibility of a long-term UV system or other interventions.
Encouraging trends were also highlighted: King’s Beach achieved a 90% water quality rating in 2025, reflecting infrastructure upgrades, favorable weather, and the UV pilot.
During the discussion, attendees asked about long-term solutions, including whether expanding the Lynn Wastewater Treatment Plant to handle stormwater was an option.
“Most of this water is not considered to be of the sewage level,” Vice President Michael Celona chimed in.
Celona noted bacterial counts are typically much lower than what treatment plants handle. Diverting stormwater could also disrupt operations.
“The entire effort… has been to kind of undo the situation where we’re sending rainwater or stream water to a wastewater plant,” Celona continued.
In a recent letter to the editor, Mancini wrote that “there are so many variables at work in a complex system like Stacey’s Brook and King’s Beach, but one thing that we can all celebrate is the overall improvement in water quality at King’s Beach in 2025.”
