Rouge Beach

Scarborough, Ontario

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The Rouge River winds its way through the largest urban park in North America and meets the waters of Lake Ontario at Rouge Beach. Near the beach is a marsh that provides a home for a variety of wildlife. Any time of the year, the picturesque scenery around Rouge Beach is calming and impressive. During the summer many people spend their days fishing and swimming off of the shores of the beach and watching the trains on the CN line drone past them in the distance. Rouge Beach is near Toronto’s only camping ground and is a great spot for city dwellers to access large green space for hiking, biking and running, among many other outdoor activities. Immediately to the east of the beach you can't help but notice the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world.

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COVID-19

Keep your distance from other people.

Practicing social distancing is essential right now. Follow the advice of the health experts. If your community has asked that you remain indoors and away from others, do so. Heading to the beach should only be considered an option if social distancing practices can be followed. Spending a day in any crowded place is the worst thing we can do for our most vulnerable right now and will counter the efforts to curb the virus’ spread.

For more information, please visit the World Health Organization public resource on COVID-19.

Water Quality

Passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time
Historical Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on September 7th, 2020. Lake Ontario Waterkeeper updates the status of this beach as soon as test results become available. These results were posted to Swim Guide on September 8th, 2020 at 1:32 PM.

For water quality icon legend, click:

Current Weather

20°C

Clear and sunny

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Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

Toronto Public Health monitors recreational water quality at sites in this region. Sampling season starts in June and ends Labour Day Weekend. Swim Guide updates Toronto beaches using the City of Toronto's Open Data.

Water at all sites is sampled for E. coli.

Toronto Public Health issues beach advisories when the geometric mean concentration of at least five samples exceeds 100 E. coli / 100 mL of water. This standard was set by the Ministry of the Environment.

Water samples are collected daily at Toronto Beaches. Results are posted to Swim Guide as soon as lab results are available. They are also available at https://www.toronto.ca/health/swimsafe and via Toronto's open data portal.

In Swim Guide, a beach is marked Green when the geometric mean of at least 5 samples is below 100 E.coli / 100 mL water.

A beach is marked Red when the results are equal to or above a geometric mean of 100 E.coli / 100 mL water.

A beach is marked Grey when there are no current results or there is no available information.

A Ministry of the Environment Procedure (F-5-5) says that a clean beach is open at least 95% of the swimming season, even if it is near a sewage pipe or combined sewer outfall. This rule applies to every place that is public, accessible, and feels like a good place to swim. When all else fails, the Ontario Environmental Protection Act strongly states that no one can interfere with the use that you can make of a public waterway - like swimming!

Water Quality Graph