Algonquin Bridge

Wards Island is a little piece of natural paradise in the City of Toronto. It is a popular place to visit for Toronto mainland residents and tourists. Wards Island is where the residential part of the island is. It is home year-round to over 600 people. In the summer the residents and visitors of Wards Island have multiple places to go for a canoe, kayak, and Stand-Up-Paddle. Popular places to access the water include the freshwater lagoon named Sunfish Cut. On any given day in the summer, people are seen Stand-Up-Paddling, canoeing, swimming, and relaxing in the water. It is an easy place to launch a canoe or kayak and adventure up the Sunfish Cut lagoon. Make sure to keep your eyes and ears open, as you will see plenty of frogs, birds, and fish on your adventures in this area.

The Island Sampling Team is made up of residents of Wards Island. These citizen scientists are a part of the Toronto Monitoring Hub, which is one of Swim Drink Fish’s monitoring hubs. Waters are tested on Tuesdays, and the results will be updated on Swim Guide on Wednesday afternoons. You can access the detailed open data files for this location here: https://www.recreationalwater.ca/toronto

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COVID-19

Keep your distance from other people.

Practicing social distancing is still essential. Only go to the beach if you are able to keep 6 feet or 2 meters away from others. Follow the instructions provided by your local health authorities. If your community has asked that you remain indoors and away from others, do so. Spending a day in any crowded place is the worst thing we can do for our most vulnerable right now and will counter our efforts to curb the virus’s spread.

Water Quality

Passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time
Historical Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on August 23th, 2022. 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 24th, 2022 at 2:46 PM.

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View this beach on Great Lakes Guide

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Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

For the 2020 summer, a dedicated group of citizen scientists run a community water sampling program on Toronto Island in collaboration with Swim Drink Fish. They are part of the Toronto Water Quality Monitoring Hub, which is helping to support 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 three locations on Wards Island 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 Tuesday morning from August 5th to September 10th, 2020. Results are available 24 hours after samples are collected.

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. 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 the geometric mean of 5 samples results are equal to 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 app.

To see a full sample results table 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