Blanchard Beach at Oakledge Park
Burlington officials closed two city beaches on Lake Champlain Friday after water samples showed high levels of E. coli bacteria.

Red signs at Blanchard Beach in Oakledge Park and Leddy Beach in the city’s North End warned visitors against entering the water. The closures came after a combined sewer overflow discharged thousands of gallons of dirty water into the Pine Street Barge Canal during an intense downpour Wednesday night. Authorities said the overflow was 90 percent stormwater “with a small wastewater fraction.”

Robert Goulding, public information manager for the Department of Public Works, said the strong storm swept “animal waste, oils and litter” into the water, likely leading to the contamination.

E. coli levels are measured by “colony forming units,” or cfu, per 100 milliliters of water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers counts below 235 acceptable; the city of Burlington closes its beaches when E. coli samples eclipse 235.

Credit: Courtesy: City of Burlington
Blanchard Beach samples taken Thursday showed 770 cfu — more than three times the EPA standard, according to city data. Goulding said it was unclear why the level was so high there.

Leddy Beach recorded levels of 345. All other city beaches were well below 235.

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Goulding said the city would analyze sample results Saturday morning before a decision is made about reopening the beaches. Blanchard could need an extra day because its reading was so high, he said.

It was the third time officials closed Blanchard this summer and the first time Leddy Beach was shuttered in 2018. Officials posted a yellow caution sign at the beach just north of the former Blodgett property because it’s the closest public water access to the Pine Street Barge Canal, which filled with 65,000 gallons of storm and wastewater overflow during Wednesday’s deluge.

Issues with Burlington’s aging wastewater infrastructure have taken center stage in recent weeks. The Queen City has released more than 11 million gallons of dirty water since the start of 2018 — nearly quadruple the total from last year — and the system overflows nearly every time a strong storm comes through.

On Thursday, Seven Days spoke to Dave Hungerford, who stood on the side of Williston Road holding a sign that read, “Burlington, Stop Dumping Shit Into Our Lake.”

Mayor Miro Weinberger has vowed action on the issue.

For updates on beach closures, click here to visit the city site.

Dave Hungerford Credit: File: Sasha Goldstein
*Correction, July 27, 2018: A previous version of this story mischaracterized the nature of the stormwater discharge during the latest downpour.

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Sasha Goldstein is Seven Days' deputy news editor.

9 replies on “High E. Coli Levels Force Closures at Two Burlington Beaches”

  1. Lake ShitPlain. Burlingtons 65,000 gal is childs play compared to what Rutland, Brandon and Vergennes dump into southern portion of the lake. Of course no large public beach down here (except Ferrisburgh Town Beach), so nobody monitoring. More crap in our water and higher education tax please…thank you.

  3. Good old Burlington, regressive heaven on earth and the clumps of junk floating near to you in the water is human excrement and nobody will fix it. This isn’t climate change this is shit change and it is much more important; but Bernie(yes, I am a communist) won’t lift a finger to clean it up. Leahy, Welch; nothing but phonies the whole lot of em.

  4. “Weinberger has vowed action.”

    How many times has this happened now? What exactly are you vowing to do, Mr. Mayor?

  5. Mayor Miro Weinberger has vowed action on the issue.

    I mean who is going to buy the lake if it is polluted? Doesn’t he sort of have to do something?

  6. Hey, Travis Bickel, you seriously need to get help with your personal obsession with Miro Weinberger. Its seriously creepy. You dont even live anywhere near Burlington. Sad!

  7. In September 2011, after a 30-day public comment period, EPA issued a second ESD modifying the remedy. For nearly ten years, the groundwater plume beneath the site was stable. However, since 2008, increases in benzene concentrations in groundwater samples along with the intermittent presence of measurable accumulations of coal tar in several monitoring wells indicate that additional containment is needed. To protect Lake Champlain from potentially being impacted by the migration of contaminated groundwater and coal tar left on site, a 200-300 foot long vertical barrier and passive recovery wells were installed during 2012 – 2013.

    So…have people forgotten that Pine Street Barge Canal is the “location” of a massive ” superfund waste clean up site”? Excessive runoff at the rate this water was to have flowed will have created issues greater then just stormwater runoff! The EPA needs to step in and fine the hell out of Burlinton! Enough is enough! Get off your backside Miro!

  8. It is ‘Clean Water Week” . . . . what a side-splitter that is. I can’t help but get nervous any time I flush my toilet thinking that the Burlington waste water system will collapse.

    Also can’t help but wonder if there are PFOAs in our water or any other carcinogen coming down from the IBM/Global site.

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