Environmental Health Home

Website Improvement Survey

Help us make our website better!

Environmental Health

Beach Sampling

Beach Sampling Results:

Alberta Health Services ensures that recreational bodies of water are safe and healthy by monitoring designated public beaches and posting notices when bacteriological guidelines are exceeded. Each summer, routine water sampling is done to establish baseline water quality levels, identify water quality problems, and to manage any associated health risks.

Recreational water quality standards are used to determine relative risk of illness for swimmers using indicator bacteria concentrations. In Alberta, the indicator bacteria used for monitoring purposes are fecal coliforms. Although they are generally not harmful themselves, they indicate the possible presence of pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria, viruses, and protozoan that also live in human and animal digestive systems. Therefore, their presence in water suggests that pathogenic microorganisms might also be present.

The Alberta Public Health Act Nuisance and General Sanitation Regulation addresses public bathing beaches and states the standards for fecal coliform levels allowable.
 

Please note that sample results reflect the water quality only at the time of sampling.  The water samples can take between 7 and 10 days to process and results are therefore not displayed in real time.  Changes in water quality can occur very rapidly and frequently.  The sampling results we provide are for informational purposes only. 

 

Click on a location below to see the sample results for a particular date.

 

Disclaimer Statement

  Privacy/Disclaimer