Editor’s update: Swimming at Compo Beach is back open after an announcement from the Parks and Rec Department. Original reporting below.
WESTPORT–For the third time this summer, Compo Beach has been closed for swimming by the Aspetuck Health District.
The waters off Compo will be tested again today. A new testing protocol, proposed in July by Parks and Rec Director Eric Barbieri, should shorten the length of time the beach is closed.
Carmen Roda, Parks and Rec Operations Manager told Westport Journal that “if the samples are delivered in time today,” swimming at Compo Beach could resume as soon as “tomorrow afternoon.”
Why does this keep happening? Surely the town and / or state is looking into the cause of the unsafe water. With all of the resources and technology available, why isn’t this fixed?
Here’s a link to an article from the Harvard School of Public Health about the causes:
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/beach-closed-blame-it-on-bacteria/
Add to that climate change and the warming of the oceans creating conditions conducive to bacterial and viral growth, the increase in road and other runoff into our waterways and the sound, the storm-drought cycle we’re experiencing, and there’s the problem. “They” can’t fix it. Maybe we can.