WILDWOOD CREST – Bacteria counts at some Cape May County beaches showed high levels of enterococcus bacteria on Monday, June 9, but levels were “below actionable levels” by the following afternoon.
Enterococcus is a bacterium that lives in the guts of animals and humans and is present in fecal matter.
Jennifer Fairman, director of environmental health at the county Department of Health, emailed the borough June 10 a 12:37 p.m., advising of “ocean water exceedances.”
Fairman said the Health Department sampled ocean water at recreational bathing beaches in Wildwood Crest on June 9 and found five beaches where the enterococcus levels were too high for recreational bathing: Lavender, Orchid, Miami, Hollywood and Jefferson.
Fairman told the borough that the department had posted advisories at those beach entrances, while the beaches remained open to the public. She said a follow-up email would report on a second set of samples taken June 10. By Wednesday, those test results showed acceptable recreational water quality.
On Wednesday afternoon, Fairman again emailed the borough with the message, “I just received the resample results and they were fine, well below the action level. An inspector will remove posted advisory signs today.”
According to Mayor Don Cabrera, the first testing came after a rainstorm, and the county tested at outfall pipe sites where rainwater comes off the island and is deposited in the ocean.
“I’m not surprised at the results,” Cabrera said. “I think this happens a few times per year, not just in the Crest.”
Similar results were found at 104th Street in Stone Harbor and at River Avenue in Point Pleasant, an Asbury Park Press article said. A level of 260 colony units was found at Point Pleasant, and 120 colony units per sample at the Crest beaches; a finding below 104 is acceptable.
Cabrera said the borough generally sends out street sweepers and advised people not to put anything into the stormwater basins, but he feels the Health Department is testing at levels where the enterococcus colonies would be concentrated before they were dispersed in seawater.
“The Crest has six outfall lines, and that is where it is at. We would prefer they test a couple streets away,” the mayor said. “At the very least you have to go out into the water.”
Cabrera said the borough is aware this happens and while they attempt to make sure the streets are clean, he believes there is a better solution for the future, such as installing a pump station to move rainwater to the back bay and eliminating outfall pipes where there are bathing beaches.
The mayor said Wildwood Crest was the first community to place port-a-potties at the beach, which caused some people to ask why.
“Would you rather they go in the water?” he said was the reply.
Pet waste, other animal waste and leaking sanitary sewer lines are other causes of bacterial pollution at beaches.
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or call 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
