When temperatures rise in Oakland County, residents and visitors take to the beaches to cool off and relax. As a public health chief of the Environmental Health Services Unit, Mark Hansell, MS, RS, and his team help keep beachgoers and the environment healthy by collecting and testing lake water for bacteria and viruses.

Hansell explains the science behind water testing, why it’s important, and how residents can help.

How does the Beach Monitoring Program work?

We have a database of the known beaches in Oakland County, and there are about 250 designated swimming beaches, and most of those are not exactly public beaches but rather neighborhood associations or boat clubs that have designated swimming areas. Then, we have about 55 public beaches, which we sample annually.

With our resources, we’re able to sample about 100 beaches every year, then we rotate in the other 200 or so beaches. About every four years, we get through the entire list of semi-public beaches.

We’re talking about 50 years’ worth of a program that we’ve been doing. It’s a grant-funded program almost entirely through EGLE.

How is the water tested?

There’s a state law in the public health code, and then there are laws for water quality. The sampling procedure is to walk out to three to four feet of water. Then you take a water sample two or three feet below the surface. We sample a beach in three separate locations within the designated swimming area. Then we sample in those three locations at a minimum of once a week. The result is brought back to the Oakland County Health Division laboratory, and we get the results the next day.

If we have to close the beach, we will post a sign that the beach has been closed. Then, we continue to resample that beach until it gets reopened. Our test is specific to E coli, which is the standard and state law. Most of the time, we have found that our issues are due to wildlife. When rain falls, it scours the landscape around these lakes and washes contaminants from animals into the lake.

There’s another technology that we’ve been piloting for a few years now on the 12 most popular beaches called qPCR – quantitative polymerase chain reaction. It is a newer rapid testing method where you can collect the sample, get it to the laboratory and have a result the same day.

How can residents help?

We encourage associations or property owners who are near the beach to get a beach sampling kit. For $12, we will give you a kit that has instructions, three collection bottles, and we cover the lab analysis cost. Residents can pick up the kit and drop off the samples at the North Oakland Health on the main campus or South Oakland Health in Southfield.

How can residents swim safely?

If you are experiencing any kind of symptoms that you think might be associated with swimming, report that to your family physician. And if it is diagnosed, a lot of these diseases are reportable. If there is a body of water that might be making people sick, we want to take care of that as soon as we can.

Also, there is a state database, BeachGuard, that tracks water samplings from all the beaches in the state. If people are traveling, they can go to the website and look up whatever lake or beach they’re headed to and see the water quality.

How does the Environmental Health Services Unit collaborate with the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE)?

The Water Resources Commissioner (WRC) monitors and operates a lot of public water supplies in Oakland County that are regulated at the state level. But, when there are issues or problems, and we have a seat at the table for something like elevated lead results in public water, then you know public health is brought in to help with the messaging and education efforts.

The primary agency that we work with is the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), and we have contracts with them for a lot of our state-funded programs, like the Drinking Water Well Program and the Public Swimming Pool Program. There are also some side contracts for groundwater monitoring. We do a lot of groundwater sampling, monitoring and mapping of potential contaminants in the county.

Why did you choose a career path in environmental health?

I have always liked the outdoors or things that are related, like plant biology or human biology. When I decided to go to Indiana State, my best friend’s dad was a professor in this program and mentioned it to me. It sounded interesting and it’s very specific to some of the public health work that a lot of local health departments do, like food safety, wastewater, toxicology, chemistry and biology.

Mark Hansell, MS, RS, has worked at Oakland County for 30 years and has been in his current role for 14 years. He earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental health science from Indiana State University, a master’s degree in community health service from Wayne State University, and a master’s degree in information systems.

For more information, visit the Oakland County Health Division website. Follow along with them for more safety tips and health news on Facebook and X.

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