Boston beaches’ water quality generally high for summer 2019: Report

A new water-quality report offers Boston-area beach-goers good news this summer.

Overall water quality was 95 percent at 15 area beaches, according to testing that the nonprofit Save the Harbor/Save the Bay conducted between May 24 and September 3, 2018. That was up slightly from the test results in 2017, and consistent with a six-year water-quality average of 94 percent.

In other words, the Boston region’s beaches appear overwhelmingly safe for swimming and otherwise cavorting during the summer of 2019—at least in terms of water quality.

Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s scores (check out the complete rundown below) “reflect the percent of samples that complied with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s single-sample limit for bacteria,” according to the group. This is “the most straightforward way of evaluating beach water quality and potential impacts on human health.”

The group encourages beach-goers “to rely on common sense” and to consult the years-long average, and not rely on any single year or on daily flaggings for bacteria as those test results generally lag by 24 hours or more.

South Boston’s M Street Beach is likely the cleanest for swimming, according to the latest scores, something that has been the case for several years running now. Nearby City Point and Pleasure Bay are pretty clean water-wise too.

This cleanliness is despite the record rainfall in 2018, according to Save the Harbor/Save the Bay spokesman Bruce Berman.

There is one gray cloud in the latest figures. “King’s Beach and Tenean beach continue to lag behind other area beaches,” Berman said in an email. “Though Lynn and Swampscott and Boston Water and Sewer continue to track down and correct illicit connections and broken pipes, it is a slow go and there are no easy fixes.”