Life is a Beach

Summer’s intense—a time to get onto the beaches and into the water. It’s also a time to think about the condition of the coast and all that happens there. Here are six reliable sources to find beaches, track water and shore conditions, and stay safe in those places.

1. Check the regular swimming area water quality reports. For state beaches (both shoreline and lake beaches), go here. Each Wednesday the state posts which swimming areas are open or closed after tests for E. coli (fresh water) and enterococci (salt water). The toll-free beach information phone line is at 1-866-287-2757.

2. Find all of the beaches, boat ramps, and coastal access points. The state coastal access guide can be searched by town.

For local information about your local recreation department and beaches:

Clinton: http://www.clintonparkrec.com/

Madison: http://www.madisonct.org/health/beach.html

New London: For Ocean Beach Park, ocean-beach-park.com; for city beaches, http://www.newlondonrec.com/

Waterford: http://waterfordct.org/bc/rp.htm

Montville: http://www.townofmontville.org/Content/Parks_and_Recreation/

Ledyard: For boat launches and picnic areas at Erickson Park and Poquetanuck Cove, go here: http://www.lisrc.uconn.edu/coastalaccess/searchtown.asp?townno=72&act=1&mapaction=9. For information about nearby Wyassup Lake boat launch, go here: http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?A=2686&Q=384366

Stonington: Barn Island, Mystic River access, Stonington Town Dock, and more: http://www.lisrc.uconn.edu/coastalaccess/searchtown.asp?townno=72&act=1&mapaction=9.

Groton: Esker Point Beach: http://www.grotonrec.com/esker.asp. Town Parks and Recreation link: http://www.town.groton.ct.us/depts/parksrec/. Eastern Point Beach information: http://www.lisrc.uconn.edu/coastalaccess/site.asp?siteid=672.

Remember that state law allows anyone in Connecticut to be admitted to any municipal beach, although parking can be expensive.

3. Pay attention to birds by checking out the posted daily bird sightings. The Connecticut Ornithological Society maintains a website that bird-watchers add to every day. It’s dense with postings from all over the state. A few days ago, a hooded warbler was spotted singing on the north side of the roundabout at Hammonasset Beach State Park. At the park’s eastern end, Meig’s Point, a little blue heron was hanging out. A month ago, a rare least bittern was seen on Barn Island in Stonington, and a white crowned sparrow visited someone’s yard in Clinton.

4. Understand that the coast is always changing. First of all, the sea is rising ever so slightly every year. Much of the Northeast is also eroding, but much of eastern Connecticut seems to be stable or even gaining beach. The U.S. Geological Survey reported this year that the beaches from Maryland to Maine are eroding. But—the caveat: the survey left out the Connecticut coast because it’s protected by Long Island. Even for the southern coast of Long Island, which faces the open ocean, the beaches appear to actually be growing slightly, on average.

For the entire rest of the coast from the mid-Atlantic states to Maine, beaches are losing a half-meter per year for the entire coast but because New England is so rocky and the measurements variable, take that with a grain of rock.

Check out this research, compiled as “National Assessment of Shoreline Change: Historical Shoreline Change along the New England and Mid-Atlantic Coasts.”

5. View Long Island Sound conditions—in real time. Buoys in Long Island Sound measure such things as temperature, how salty the water is, and how much dissolved oxygen there is. The University of Connecticut posts this real-time data here. As I write this, the temperature in the Eastern Sound (near where dredged material is dumped, off New London) is 61.2 degrees and dissolved oxygen at 100 percent.

In the central Sound (near New Haven), it’s warmer, 70 degrees and the oxygen is “super-saturated” at 138 percent. This is not unusual. The saturation measurement is based on what the levels would be if the oxygen in the water now all were released in the air.

6. Stay alive. As a former lifeguard and a reporter who has watched families search for missing boaters, I have witnessed many times how seemingly innocuous decisions end up killing people. I watched a mother stand on the shore of the Connecticut River late into the night hoping that rescue personnel would find her son who had been making donuts alone in a motorboat and fallen out, without a personal floatation devices (PFDs). That is not the only way people die trying to have fun. The sport of holding onto the back of a motorboat to catch a nice ride (“teak surfing,”) can trap the rider in a blanket of carbon monoxide exhaust. Go here to learn more about boating safety.