There Shore-ly won’t be any swimming here.
High levels of fecal bacteria found in the water at Beachwood Beach West in the Jersey Shore borough of Beachwood led officials to ban on swimming there for the rest of the summer.
The beach along the Toms River was shut down for the remainder of the season, “for the safety, health and welfare of the residents and others,” the borough’s mayor and City Council said in a post on the town website.
The Ocean County beach had four straight weeks of high fecal bacteria readings by the Ocean County Health Department leading up to the closure.
The beach itself remains open, so revelers can still have some fun in the sun. The beach includes a pier that extends into the water.
“You may still sit and take in the lovely view of the scenery but no one will be permitted to swim,” the post continued.
A town resident said that fecal matter tends to be deposited in the beach’s waters after inclement weather.
“The way the river works it’s a reverse river, so the current that pulls in and then Cedar Creek comes in. So we don’t get a strong current this far up north on the river,” Beachwood resident Paul Allocco told News12 New Jersey.
“Whenever we get heavy rain, between like spring and summer, it just ends up having more of the deposit from the goose poop, which causes the PH of the water to go pretty high.”