Muck Causing Problems At St. Clair Shores' Veterans Memorial Park

ST. CLAIR SHORES, MI — While cleaning Veterans Memorial Park beach isn’t new for St. Clair Shores, the kind of much that’s drifting ashore this year is and it’s causing the city additional work. City Manager Mike Smith said the muck comes from algae and is harder to clean, which ultimately means more St. Clair Shores’ workers are needed to do the job and keep the beach open.

“As it comes in, it rolls into marble-size pellets, and so when we attempt to rake it, it goes through the tines of the rake,” Smith said. “What used to take an hour and a half to two hours is now taking dramatically longer because it gets around the devices we use to clean it up.”

Macomb County Health and Community Services tests the water for E. coli twice per week, and if the daily count comes in over 300 parts E. coli per million, the beach has to be closed to swimmers. That has only occurred once so far this year, on June 14. The department also takes a 30-day average of the amount of E. coli and will shut down the beach if it exceeds 130 parts per million over a 30-day average. That has not occurred in 2017.

For more, go to C & G Newspapers.

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