News Photo by Julie Riddle On Monday afternoon, children play at Starlite Beach in Alpena, one of two Alpena beaches with safe bacterial levels included in a survey of more than 3,000 swimming beaches nationwide.

ALPENA — Two city beaches with previous safety citations were among those declared healthy enough to swim in, a recent report said.

Starlite Beach and Blair Street Park, two Alpena sites tested as part of a nationwide survey, showed acceptable levels of bacteria years after both sites and several others in the city showed unacceptable levels, the Environment Michigan Research and Policy Group said.

Samples collected at Blair Street Park in June, July, and August of this year show levels of E. coli below the maximum acceptable by the state health department for areas used for “total body contact recreation,” such as swimming.

A one-day spike in levels of E.coli there — a bacteria that lives in the lower intestine of humans and animals — neared the threshold in mid-July, according to Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy data available online.

Each year from 2009 to 2013, Blair Street Park tested high enough to require the city to close the park for several days of the summer and issue a contamination advisory. The high bacterial levels spiked briefly each year, counterbalanced by mostly low bacterial count.

The DEGLE site lists stormwater runoff as the cause of the contamination.

Starlite Beach was closed briefly in June 2011 — as were Mich-e-ke-wis and Thompson parks, which have not been tested this year — because of contamination showing up in DEGLE testing. Starlite was also closed for two days in August 2010.

In tests performed in the past three months, bacterial levels were all at an acceptable level at Starlite Beach.

Around the state, unsafe bacteria levels were detected for at least one day at 78 of 196 Michigan beaches where water samples were tested last year, according to the Environment Michigan report.

Overflowing or failing sewer systems, polluted runoff from roads or parking lots, and farms can pollute bodies of water such as Lake Huron with fecal bacteria, putting swimmers’ health at risk.

About 57 million people get sick in the U.S. every year from contact with polluted water, according to Environment Michigan. Contact with water contaminated with fecal bacteria can lead to gastrointestinal illness and respiratory disease, ear and eye infection, and skin rash.

In 2019, more than 3,000 beaches were tested in 29 coastal and Great Lakes states. Of those, more than half had unsafe levels of fecal contamination on at least one day.

Alcona and Alpena counties, each with two beaches tested, were among only 30 of the 255 counties tested where no unacceptable levels of contamination were found in 2019.

Unlike the combined sewers used by many Great Lakes communities, where sewage and rainwater use the same pipes, Alpena has a separated stormsewer system, according to Mike Glowinski, utility manager for Suez, the company contracted to manage Alpena’s waste.

The separated system prevents the overflow caused by rainwater common with combined sewers, keeping all sewage contained until it reaches the treatment plant, Glowinski said. The plant undergoes annual inspections and submits monthly reports and hasn’t had a violation in at least 10 years, he said.

Information about 21 other public and private beaches in Alpena County — as well as public areas in Presque Isle and Alcona counties — can be found at DEGLE’s BeachGuard site, egle.state.mi.us/beach/. Not all beaches are tested.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.