Michigan summers and beach days go hand-in-hand but not every seeming oasis is a safe place to dip your toes.
Before packing a cooler, towels, sand toys and an umbrella and heading to your local beach, be sure to check out the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s Beach Guard System website to see which beaches are closed or under contamination advisories for high bacteria levels.
The notifications are made as part of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s Beach Guard system. Each beach’s status is subject to change as new test results come in. To see an up-to-date map of the red-flagged beaches and details on the water quality tests, check the Beach Guard website here.
The Beach Guard site gives the public information on beach water quality across the state. It includes water sampling results and daily updates on which beaches are under advisories or have been closed. The data covers 1,224 public beaches and 575 private ones.