Mayor Rex Richardson | City of Long Beach Official photo
Mayor Rex Richardson | City of Long Beach Official photo
Long Beach, CA – The City of Long Beach has received high recreational water quality grades from Heal the Bay for 2022-2023, with 93% percent of its beaches receiving A or B grades for the dry summer months, according to the Annual Beach Report Card that was released on June 14, 2023. Long Beach has seen sustained improvements in water quality over the past decade.
“Long Beach is famous for our miles of waterfront, which attracts swimmers, sailors, kayakers, kite boarders and more,” said Mayor Rex Richardson. “Testing our water regularly, communicating water quality, and working to keep our waters clean and safe are top priorities.”
Water quality from City beaches received 10 A grades, four Bs and one C for the dry summer season, identified as April through October, with two Alamitos Bay beaches receiving A+ grades. Beach water quality during the winter dry periods also scored highly, with all of them receiving A and B grades. For the third year in a row, no Long Beach beaches made the Beach Bummer list. The complete list of year-round water quality grades in Long Beach is available in Heal the Bay’s full report.
Long Beach has approximately seven miles of public beach along coastal water and bays, typically attracting thousands of residents and visitors throughout the year. In order to protect the safety of the public, residents and visitors, water samples are collected three times a week and tested routinely by the Health Department's Environmental Health Water Quality Monitoring Program to monitor bacterial levels.
The Beach Report Card was established more than 30 years ago to maintain a safe beach environment for the public by providing reliable and easy-to-understand analyses of beach water quality and advocating for water quality policies and improvement projects. As part of the study, water samples are retrieved from beaches and analyzed for bacteria and other pollutants, then receive grades A to F based on the levels found in the samples. The better the grade a beach receives, the lower the risk of illness to ocean users.
Current information on water quality in Long Beach is available on the Environmental Health Bureau webpage. More information about Heal the Bay is available on their website at healthebay.org.
Original source can be found here.
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