The Interior Health Authority monitors the water quality at 54 Interior region beaches. Sampling is conducted during the height of swim season (May – September).

Interior Health follows the recreational water quality criteria recommended by the Canadian Recreational Water Guidelines. One sample is collected per beach per week. The geometric mean for each beach is calculated from the 5 most recent samples.
Recreational water is considered safe if the geometric mean result is under 200 E.coli/100mL. The single sample criteria is 400 E.Coli/100ML. Should the geometric mean exceed 200 E.coli/100 mL, or the single sample result exceed 400 E.coli/100 ML, or in the event of a known hazard or spill, the Medical Health Officer will make an assessment of the risk to human health. If there is a risk to human health, a warning sign will be posted at the beach. Results are communicated on the Interior Health Authority website (https://www.interiorhealth.ca/YourEnvironment/RecreationalWater/Pages/default.aspx). To ensure consistency, Fraser Riverkeeper calculates the geometric mean result for the Interior Health samples. We update Swim Guide according to these results, as soon as they become available.

Test results from the weekly samples for the Interior region beaches are typically posted on Fridays. Recreational water quality for a beach is determined by E. coli counts from based results collected by either the beach owner (local beach owners conduct their own beach testing and provide the sampling results to Interior Health) or Interior Health.

A beach is marked Green when geometric mean results are under 200 E.coli / 100 ML water.

A beach is marked Red when the geometric mean is equal to or above 200 E.coli / 100 ML water.

A beach can also be marked red when a single sample result is equal to or above 400 E.coli/100ML water.

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