One of the Maritimes most popular beaches has been given a cleaner bill of health.
Testing has not produced evidence of a chronic water quality issue at Parlee Beach in Shediac, N.B., meaning the water should be suitable for swimming. But the government is making a number of changes to keep it that way.
More than 1400 water samples were taken at Parlee Beach between May-October 2017.
Area residents and environmental groups demanded the province take action after high levels of fecal contamination were suspected at the beach.
Parlee is a major tourism draw for New Brunswick, but they saw a decline in the number of visitors during the summer of 2017, after several no swim advisories were posted.
The Department of Environment says their research shows there is no evidence of a chronic water quality issue, but the report says bacteria was discovered in the water shed.
The government has adopted a new water monitoring protocol. 14 recommendations will be implemented throughout this year.
Some of those recommendations include identifying the specific sources of bacteria in the watershed, continuing a dog waste education program, and enhancing swimmer safety.
Environmental groups say the recommendations are encouraging, as they would like to see further studies done.
"Hopefully after two years of experience they will be able to find more correlation," says Arthur Melanson of the Red Dot Association.
"One of the issues that they mentioned is that it was a dry summer which had an impact on the water runoff and also the beach overload. There was still 20% less people there this year," adds Melanson.
The N.B. government says they are spending $760,000 to implement these 14 recommendations. That is in addition to spending nearly $3-million on infrastructure and studies to support water quality improvements at Parlee Beach.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Mary Cranston.
