Ontario Place West Island Beach

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This small pebble beach is located on the west island of Ontario Place and provides wide open beautiful views of Lake Ontario. Hidden in the three artificial landscaped islands offshore of Lake Ontario, this beautiful green space is not designated for swimming … but Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and other waterfront-lovers believe that can change.

The Ontario Place islands make up an iconic waterfront park in Toronto. The park hosts activities like outdoor yoga, segway tours, Jazz Sundays on the Vista, Lake Shore Boat rentals and Wigwam Chi-Chemung presented by MYSEUM.

Ontario Place also has huge potential to become an incredible place for people to get into the water. It could be like the Gord Edgar Downie Pier at Breakwater Park in Kingston.

The site has so much possibility, but it doesn't meet the criteria for an official beach in Toronto (yet!). The water is not as accessible as it should be and some debris/ fill may make water entry and exit hazardous for swimmers. Ontario Place is discouraging people from swimming there, even though increasing numbers of people are seeking it out.

Lake Ontario Waterkeeper began monitoring water quality here in 2019. The work is part of Swim Drink Fish’s community monitoring and citizen science work. Waterkeeper is looking at water quality data to see if the site would be suitable for swimming.

Swim Drink Fish staff and trained Citizen Scientists test the water at the Ontario Place West Island Beach once a week on Thursdays. New results are posted to Swim Guide on Friday afternoons until the end of September.

Historical water quality results are available on Swim Guide. Detailed results and open data are available at www.recreationalwater.ca/toronto.

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WATER QUALITY

Meets water quality standards
Current Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on August 15th, 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 at

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View this beach on Great Lakes Guide

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MONITORING FREQUENCY

SOURCE INFORMATION

Water is sampled for E. coli and Total Coliform at all sites. The water is sampled twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from the end of May to early September. Results are available 24 hours after samples are collected, on Wednesday and 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 must meet water quality criteria for 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 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