Humber Bay Park West

Etobicoke, Ontario

Part of a network of small peninsulas stretching out into Lake Ontario, Humber Bay Park West is a beautiful spot on the city's waterfront. The rocky beach is a very popular scuba diving site, especially with beginners. Trails behind the beach make for a good walking and bicycle route. This side of Humber Park is home to a few boating clubs and docks, which means it has slightly less green space than its Eastern counterpart.

Although a variety of recreational activities takes place in the water here, water quality at Humber Bay Park is currently unmonitored by the City of Toronto. Water quality concerns at this site are tied to its close proximity to the Humber Wastewater Treatment Plant. Information and results of E. Coli sampling will be posted here until the last week of August 2019. After this period, recreational water users are advised to be cautious as E. coli bacteria can cause health problems in humans and pets.

A small group of trained citizen scientists is undertaking weekly sampling. These citizen scientists are a part of the Toronto Monitoring Hub, which is one of Swim Drink Fish’s monitoring hubs. You can access the detailed open data files for this location here: https://www.recreationalwater.ca/toronto

Get directions to this beach

Water Quality

Passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time
Historical Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on August 29th, 2019. Lake Ontario Waterkeeper updates the status of this beach as soon as test results become available. These results were posted to Swim Guide on August 30th, 2019 at 12:40 PM.

For water quality icon legend, click:

Current Weather

2°C

Cloudy

View this beach on Great Lakes Guide

Report Pollution

Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

Starting in 2017 a group of citizen scientists initiated a community sampling program in collaboration with the charity Swim Drink Fish. This is part of the Volunteer Water Monitoring Project at the Toronto Hub. Swim Drink Fish is supporting communities in their efforts to obtain accurate and up-to-date water quality information in areas with no official monitoring. Trained community members monitor recreational water quality at one location in the Humber Bay Park West during the summer months. The guidelines followed are Ontario’s Provincial Water Quality Objectives from 2014, set by the Ministry of Environment at 100 E.coli per 100 millilitres of water.

Water is sampled for E. coli and Total coliform at all sites. Sampling occurs once a week on Thursday morning from June 7th to September 30th, 2019. Results are available 24 hours after samples are collected, on Friday afternoons. Beaches are posted when the geometric mean of 5 samples collected within a given swimming area and within a 30-day period exceeds 100 E.coli / 100 ml of water. A The Ministry of the Environment F-5-5 procedure says that a clean beach meets water quality criteria at least 95% of the swimming season, even if it is near a sewage pipe or combined sewer outfall. Test results are expressed as Most Probable Number (MPN) of E.coli per 100 ml by using the IDEXX Quanti-Tray/2000 MPN Table. A beach is marked Green when geometric mean of 5 samples results are equal or below 100 E.coli / 100 ML water. A beach is marked Red when the geometric mean concentration (minimum of five samples) is equal to or above 100 E.coli / 100 ML water, according to Ontario’s water quality guidelines. A beach is marked Grey when there are no current results or there is no available information. Results are posted as soon as lab results are available. Results will be communicated through the swim guide website and apps. To see a full sample results tables visit the Waterkeeper.ca website. Results are also available by email at elise@swimdrinkfish.ca or by calling The Swim Guide +1 (416) 861-1237.

Water Quality Graph