{"id":239701,"date":"2026-05-21T20:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T20:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239701\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T20:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T20:21:13","slug":"testing-the-water-meet-the-team-who-checks-nycs-beaches-for-sewage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239701\/","title":{"rendered":"Testing the Water: Meet the Team Who Checks NYC\u2019s Beaches For Sewage"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of Summer & THE CITY, our weekly newsletter made to help you enjoy \u2014 and survive \u2014 the hottest time in the five boroughs. Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jessica Bonamusa\u2019s mind is in the water, and where the gutter meets the shore.<\/p>\n

Bonamusa, a research scientist at New York City\u2019s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, spends all year thinking about pools, spas and saunas and the microbes that might be thriving in those spaces.<\/p>\n

But when the weather gets warmer, in the lead-up to the first beach weekend, she turns her attention to the sea.<\/p>\n

Bonamusa is part of a team of five scientists who visit the miles of shoreline along the ocean, bays and rivers in New York City to make sure they\u2019re safe for swimming.<\/p>\n

\"\"A lifeguard watches over swimmers at Rockaway Beach, July 20, 2022. Credit: Katie Honan\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

Donning waist-high waders, they plod into open waters and submerge test tubes to take samples, making sure they get a scoop without sediment or debris.<\/p>\n

The biggest threat to the water quality at some beaches is rain, and the dread combined sewer overflow \u2014 when excess stormwater mixes with untreated or partially treated sewage, turning a trip to the ocean into an iffy-at-best excursion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a recent April morning, Bonamusa kicked off the summer\u2019s testing\u00a0along the Rockaway peninsula, starting at Beach 9th Street and traveling west to test the private beaches at Breezy Point. As she went, she spotted a dolphin swimming not too far from where she took a sample.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The scientists begin testing a month before beaches open to get a fuller picture of water quality, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat tells us how long the beach has been clean for,\u201d she said in between collecting water.<\/p>\n

Once she\u2019s finished, Bonamusa drives them to the health department lab in Manhattan. Once there, the water is exposed to a type of food for what\u2019s called \u201cflora substrate testing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s health commissioner, Dr. Alister Martin, tagged along for the first water quality test, heading into the ocean at Beach 17th Street up to his waist.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the bacteria is present it eats the food and its waste is fluorescent under a black light,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"DepartmentDepartment of Health lab supervisor Valeria Cevallos looks over positive test samples, May 14, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

The work in that lab will decide if a beach is safe for swimming, is placed under an advisory, or closed.<\/p>\n

Bonamusa showed him how to submerge the clear plastic cup into the water and he followed, pulling the second of eight samples that would be taken that day along the coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a million invisible ways we keep people safe in the city as the health department,\u201d he later told THE CITY. \u201cThis morning here at Rockaway Beach is one of those stories. We know when our beaches are safe for swimming thanks to our water ecologists like Jessica.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waterborne History<\/p>\n

The health department has tested the city\u2019s water for more than 100 years thanks to the pioneering work of Dr. George Soper, a sanitary engineer at the health department in the early 1900s who connected waterborne disease transmission to sewage and bad water quality.<\/p>\n

He is best known as the epidemiologist who traced a typhoid fever outbreak on Long Island back to the asymptomatic Mary Mallon, a cook who worked in many homes that all had the virus. His work became vital for understanding healthy carriers of a virus \u2014 and she became known as Typhoid Mary.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Department of Health have a water testing lab in their Kips Bay, Manhattan office, May 14, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

But Soper\u2019s work and legacy as a sanitary engineer has continued for generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first Harbor Water Survey to measure bacteria levels was conducted in 1909, in conjunction with what is now the Department of Environmental Protection.<\/p>\n

In the decades since, there have been more changes and updates to ensure the water is safe, including a health code update in 1959, and 1972\u2019s Clean Water Act also improved water quality. The health department has published its water quality data<\/a> since 2005.<\/p>\n

They test the water and eight public beaches operated by the Parks Department, 17 privately-operated beaches, and one privately operated freshwater lake at the Staten Island YMCA.<\/p>\n

\"Number<\/p>\n

There are places to swim in open water in every borough except Manhattan. Of the spots tested, The Bronx technically has the most, with nine separate private beaches in the borough, mostly on City Island, in addition to the public Orchard Beach.<\/p>\n

Each tested beach has different advisory thresholds, based off of predictive modeling using years of historical data that shows the bacteria level after rain at each beach. For example, at many of the beaches on Staten Island, if there is between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rain within 24 hours, there will be an advisory there for 12 hours afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But at other beaches, including Manhattan Beach and Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, if more than 2.5 inches fall in 24 hours, an advisory could last for a full day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"DepartmentJessica Bonamusa prepares to take an ocean sample at Rockaway Beach, April 29, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

The Rockaway peninsula, the city\u2019s only ocean-facing beach, is generally the cleanest in the city; it\u2019s only tested every other week because of that. All the others are tested weekly.<\/p>\n

Last summer, five of the city\u2019s eight public beaches had at least one swimming advisory notice due to water quality, lasting between 2 and 32 days for Midland Beach, which had three beach closures. Nearby South Beach, also on Staten Island, had 31 advisory days and also had three beach closures.<\/p>\n

Sixteen of the city\u2019s 17 private beaches were open last year, and 15 had at least one swimming advisory. \u201cBoosters Beach\u201d along the East River, which is operated by the Whitestone Booster Civic Association, had the largest number of advisory days last summer with 99. The White Cross Fishing Club beach along Eastchester Bay in Throgs Neck in the Bronx has the most closure days, with nine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bonamusa, who grew up in Manhattan, has been fascinated by the ocean since she was a child, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad took me snorkeling when I was a kid, so maybe it was that,\u201d she said. And she stressed the importance of the city\u2019s work so everyone can enjoy the water safely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want everyone to be able to swim and have a wonderful time,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is what keeps us able to do that and able to enjoy our beaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of Summer & THE CITY, our weekly newsletter made to help you enjoy \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-239701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}