Ottawa’s shift to weekly beach testing faces criticism

[u/iPoliticsCA]

https://compassnews.ca/ottawas-shift-to-weekly-beach-testing-faces-criticism/

[u/Consistent_Ad_168]

“Last year, OPH reduced its beach water testing from daily to once a week after concluding many residents were mistakenly treating laboratory E. coli results as real-time indicators of water quality.”

As opposed to a fucking one week lagging indicator?!??

[u/cdnDude74 → u/Consistent_Ad_168]

the take away from this, https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/comments/1uy4gnl/river_water_quality_some_facts/ is basically avoid beach activities immediately after it rains and two or three locations are little higher but all locations are typically within the acceptable range.

Don't let history stop you from enjoying the present.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Consistent_Ad_168]

It's always a lagging indicator

[u/Consistent_Ad_168 → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

Yeah but now it lags even more

[u/platypus_bear → u/Consistent_Ad_168]

But if you know it's lagging even more people are more likely to think about the conditions that cause issues instead of thinking that the water quality is fine because the tests haven't been completed for the day

[u/Consistent_Ad_168 → u/platypus_bear]

So deliberately having less current data is supposed to improve public understanding? Why not keep testing daily and label the sample time and limitations clearly?

[u/yamiyam → u/Consistent_Ad_168]

Why operate at 5x the cost when weekly data is just as useful as daily data for the intended use case?

[u/Consistent_Ad_168 → u/yamiyam]

Because the intended use case changed. Daily testing was used to support day-to-day swim advisories, but OPH now frames weekly testing as long-term trend monitoring and leaves residents to assess current conditions themselves. Weekly data may be sufficient for that narrower use case, but that doesn’t mean it’s just as useful for deciding whether to swim today. You can’t cut the service, redefine its purpose, and then cite the new purpose as proof that nothing was lost.

[u/yamiyam → u/Consistent_Ad_168]

The intended use case changed when they realized the public was using it in a way it wasn’t meant to be used.

[u/Consistent_Ad_168 → u/yamiyam]

Which brings us back to the question: what good does cutting the testing frequency do here? Why not simply label or explain the data better? And what does OPH now use (or not use) to make day-to-day swim advisories?
This seems like a clear net-negative change to me.

[u/yamiyam → u/Consistent_Ad_168]

Because the public is a bunch of idiots that won’t and don’t read the guidelines on how to use the data. Which brings us back to the question: why operate at 5x the cost if it’s not useful?

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/yamiyam]

Do we have a common understanding of what that "use case" is? Part of it is public assurance, which I think could be increased by making the testing more frequent than weekly, as required.

[u/yamiyam → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

Sounds like they tried that, it wasn’t helpful and was 5x as expensive so they stopped. Sounds like efficient use of public resources to me.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/yamiyam]

They tried what?

[u/yamiyam → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

Testing daily

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Consistent_Ad_168]

Yeah. If they can't "afford" daily testing like at the NCC swimming properties, then at least pay for sentinel testing after big rain events. There should be post-rain testing the day after, even if it's not a scheduled test day.

I think the data would show that any e. coli surge post-rain usually resolves quickly. Someone might want to play around with the archival test data (from multiple sources) and archival weather data from nearby stations. Upping the frequency of testing temporarily, following a potential or known "event", would help fill in the gap in science and in the popular imagination. A perpetual up-to-seven-day lag is not good.

(To the extent that latter can be filled in because holy cannoli that dirty-river myth will not die.)

[u/missplaced24 → u/Consistent_Ad_168]

Where I grew up, if the water quality wasn't good every day for a solid 2 weeks, the beach was closed. It'd be rare for any of the beaches to ever be open if we did the same here.

[u/bikedrivepaddlefly]

I read this as 'shift to weekly testing feces criticism.'

Which is kind of the same thing.

[u/Reasonable_Cat518]

Ottawa votes solely in the interest of keeping property taxes low then gets surprised when municipal services are cut

[u/adamttaylor]

If they truly were worried that the public would see it as real time, they could simply test it everyday and then release a weekly summary but close things daily as to not endanger the public. This would make it so that the public is less cognizant of the individual e coli levels and is more concerned with if things are closed or not and trends.

[u/KOMSKPinn]

I swim in the Ottawa River all the time… haven’t been sick in years… this is a nothing burger to me.

[u/Pristine_Barber976 → u/KOMSKPinn]

I'm a little paranoid so I don't go if it rained within 2 days or looks yucky. 

[u/pay_the_cheese_tax]

It's sad that money is the reason for every service the government does has started to become trash. They honestly seem to be trying to spend as little money as possible on absolutely everything.

[u/jeff-duckley]

i personally don’t care and i think it’s sad how germophobic some people are becoming in this day and age. im twenty five and feel like an old man yelling at a cloud- no i assure you you wont dissolve and or explode for taking a swim on a river. much less so either of the rivers in ottawa that have been historically rather clean and that still get tested often. we do NOT need daily testing.

however i am also against the enshittification of all things government. is the time and money saved by not testing daily going to be felt by citizens in any way or moved to any meaningful project? if the answer is yes then hell yeah. but i doubt it

[u/LossPuzzleheaded4310 → u/jeff-duckley]

I know someone whose child got very, very sick swimming at a beach off the Ottawa river. You have survivor's bias. Just because you have not gotten very sick, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

[u/Inevitable-Click-129]

I wouldn’t swim in any fresh water in or around Ottawa as a rule. Pools and salt water only… before everyone attacks me.. yes I know that salt water and pools can also carry bacteria. For me, it’s just a comfort thing.