Once more onto the beaches to bust a filthy myth

"It took two years of testing and monitoring before Environmental Defence awarded the city its first Blue Flags, according to Dr. Smith. Realistically, however, the certification was never in doubt. That's because the beaches recently certified already exceeded Blue Flag standards for water quality.
In the European Union and most Canadian provinces, water is officially deemed suitable for swimming if tests show that it contains fewer than 200 fecal coliform bacteria per 100 millilitres. In Ontario, however, beaches are posted as unsafe for swimming when testing reveals half as many E. coli bacteria in the same amount of water. (E. coli is scientifically preferable to fecal coliform as an indicator of human and animal waste in the water, according to Mahesh Patel of the public health department.)
The upshot is that Toronto beaches are posted long before they reach levels of pollution that most of the world considers perfectly swimmable. 'We already have the most stringent standards in Canada and, perhaps, North America and the world,' Mr. Patel said.
By the time the French Riviera city of Nice adopted even primary sewage treatment, in an attempt to bring local E. coli counts down from the thousands, Toronto beaches were already routinely exceeding Blue Flag standards. But nobody around here believes it, so we need the official certification to make the fact known."