Fecal Bacteria Has Reached Unsafe Levels On 85% Of Beaches In Texas
Planning a last-minute family beach vacation before summer is over? You may want to rethink that. For the past two years, more than 85% of Texas beaches tested positive for unsafe levels of fecal bacteria. Here are some of the worst offenders:
If you've ever seen a cautionary sign about bacteria on the beach and ignored it, it's time to rethink that decision. A study by Environment Texas revealed that both last year and in 2017, more than 85% of salt and freshwater swimming areas contained unsafe levels of fecal matter.
Ropes Park in Corpus Christi had the worst results, with unsafe bacteria levels on 24 out of 57 testing days. High amounts were also reported at Cole Park and Emerald Beach, both also located in Corpus.
Galveston Bay was a close runner-up, with several of its beaches containing unsafe bacteria levels on at least six testing days. Pictured here is Galveston Island State Park #6 at Bayside, which had water pollution 19% of the time.
About one-eighth of samples taken from Beach Drive in Freeport had elevated fecal bacteria. No other areas in the coastal community were unsafe for swimming, however, so that's good news!
Palacios Pavilion East at Matagorda Bay is the final saltwater locale with significantly elevated bacteria levels. Five out of 43, or 12%, of samples were contaminated.
Unfortunately, freshwater reservoirs all across Texas also contained unsafe levels of bacteria. 96 out of 100 test sites in the Houston area, including Lake Houston, were above the permitted level at least once.
Visit TexasBeachWatch.com before planning a trip to check the status of a particular place. A red pin indicates unsafe levels of fecal bacteria, yellow means the risk is moderate, and green signifies little-to-no contamination.
