Glencoe's Beautiful Beach —Can we sustain this?

With roughly 2.5 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, Glencoe, Illinois' water is within skipping distance from Lake Michigan. As I discussed on the week one discussion board, there is also the Skokie Lagoons which ultimately drain out into Lake Michigan as well. Effectively, all things liquid from tap water to sewage to precipitation start and end with the Great lake.

I grew up going to the Glencoe Beach, a property of the Glencoe Park District. On a hot summer day, nothing was better than cooling off with a dip in the lake or an ice pop from the little food hut right on the beach. It is something I hope to repeat with a family of my own one day. The beach is one of the cleaner shorelines of Lake Michigan that I know of. Water quality tests are conducted daily before opening to the public to ensure nobody's health is jeopardized trying to escape the summer heat (Glencoe Park District- IDPH). Closures for the beach have remained consistent for the past seven years or so, at around five to seven days a year. Beach closures have actually decreased from the double digits numbers seen a decade ago (IDPH). The closures, dating back to 2007, have consistently been attributed to "high levels of bacteria". Important to note, however, is since 2012 the causes of the bacteria levels are listed as "unknown". Before that, from 2007-2011, causes were a combination of unknowns, storm water runoff, and sewage overflow. Since 2012, though, every closure due to bacteria is attributed to an "unknown" (IDPH). 

Ferris Bueller enjoying the view of Lake Michigan atop one of the entrances to Glencoe Beach

The testing of water quality done daily by employees of the Park District samples the amount of "CFU's"—Colony Forming Units—in the shallow waters open for recreation on the beach. For the available data, I was only able to correlate CFU counts in the thousands corresponding appropriately with beach closures for the given day. However, in 2021, in a three month beach season, counts exceeded 500 cfu per milliliter only once in early June (IDPH Results data). Therefore, every piece of available information I can track down seems to indicate that the Lake Michigan shoreline waters of Glencoe are healthy, or acceptable. 

Thus, it pains me when I read Chapter four of Dan Egan's The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. It makes me wonder just how short of a walk it would be out into the lake until I am standing on thousands of quagga mussels. There has been no issues with mussels at the Glencoe Beach, but I am sure this is a matter of containment, or mitigation strategies. By no means is this shoreline protected from the devastation this exotic species is causing my beloved Lake Michigan. 

Regardless, focusing on the positive side of thins, Glencoe boasts its clean tap water, too. In 2021, Glencoe's drinking water quality testing met standards for more than 100 possible contaminants. Furthermore, none of the municipal piping has lead, though some private industries may connect to the main pipelines with lead. Over the past two decades, lead pipes have continuously decreased and there is an ongoing effort to remove as much lead and copper contaminants as possible in the coming years (Village of Glencoe). 

As an avid beachgoer when I am home, and somebody that loves outdoor recreation, it is imperative to me that we maintain the health of these spaces long enough for future generations to enjoy. Reading excerpts from Egan's book to discover recreational fisherman taking their children to some of their favorite old spots, only to find them depleted of stocks is awfully depressing. Daily water quality testing is a great step forward in my opinion, and clearly something that is to stick around for the long term. I think water quality testing should be done more regularly than the three year cycle it is currently on, but that will be another interesting thing to keep in mind heading forward. Since water is of utmost importance to any organism, water conservation is an issue I keep a close eye on. We cannot take it for granted like so many other natural resources, we must maintain our Great Lakes to ensure prosperity for our future generations. 

Glencoe Beach on a warm summer day

Sources:

http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/ilbeaches/public/BeachDetail.aspx?BeachID=337

https://www.villageofglencoe.org/government/departments/public_works/water_quality_commitment.php#:~:text=Annual%20Drinking%20Water%20Quality%20Report&text=The%20results%20for%202021%20are,safe%20and%20reliable%20drinking%20water.

Dan Egan, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, p. 108-150, 2017

Photos:

https://filmap.tumblr.com/post/103888426736/ferris-buellers-day-off-john-hughes-1986-bench

https://glencoe-park-district.ticketleap.com/dailypass/details