NORTHAMPTON — A swimming spot on the Mill River near Smith College may not be clean enough for swimming.
The site, near Ward Avenue and the Northampton Community Garden, had a high amount of E. coli making it unsafe for swimming when it was most recently tested on July 30 by the Connecticut River Conservancy. The organization tests the site weekly in the spring through the fall and posts the results online. When the site was tested on July 23, it was also unsafe for swimming and bacteria levels were much higher — E. coli levels were more than 10 times the amount the Connecticut River Conservancy says is safe for swimming.
Because there’s an area nearby where people bring their dogs, “that is a site that tends to be on the higher side,” said Angela Chaffee, communications director for the Connecticut River Conservancy. When dog owners don’t clean up their pet’s waste, it can get washed into the river.
But the measurement doesn’t necessarily apply to swimming spots in other parts of the Mill River, Chaffee said. “The test can really only speak to the exact spot it was sampled from. That’s just the nature of the test.” She added, “We can’t really extrapolate the results from one site to a different site or even one day to a different day.”
The Connecticut River Conservancy also tests the Mill River by a bridge on Route 10 in Northampton, near the intersection of South and Earle streets. It was labeled as safe for swimming based on tests results on July 30. The previous week, on July 23, it was not safe for swimming — like the spot near Smith College, E. coli was measured to be more than 10 times the level the Connecticut River Conservancy considers to be safe for swimming.
The river tends to have higher levels of bacteria after wet weather, Chaffee said. “If it has rained recently, we try to tell people to avoid the river for 24 to 48 hours in order to let the bacteria clear out.”
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.