two montreal-area beaches closed due to e. coli earlier this month have re-opened, although fear of the bacteria remains a concern for many people trying to beat the heat with a beach visit.
jean-doré beach on
jean-drapeau park, just east of the island of montreal, re-opened on thursday after closing the previous day.
meanwhile, the beach at cap-st-jacques nature park in the northwest suburb of pierrefonds-roxboro, which closed earlier this month, re-opened on aug. 12.
this is definitely not a problem unique to quebec: in july,
six beaches closed
due to the presence of e. coli in the windsor, ont. region alone. four beaches
closed in vancouver
around the same time, for the same reason.
the pathogen has also made
37 people sick in the u.s. — hospitalizing 10 — linked to the consumption of romaine lettuce contaminated with e. coli at wendy’s restaurants in michigan, ohio and pennsylvania. according to cbs news, a 2019 e. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce in 2019 made almost 200 people ill, with cow feces being blamed — the
contaminated lettuce was grown downslope from where cattle grazed.
what is e. coli?
the bacteria — full name escherichia coli — isn’t dangerous in and of itself. humans and many animals have harmless e. coli strains in our body, which help us with digestion.
but some strains can be dangerous. the feces of animals who have contracted these dangerous strains can get into the water in several ways — through agricultural runoff, for instance, or just through the presence of animals in their natural habitats. (geese and seagulls are frequent culprits.) that infected feces can infect the water, which then spreads to other waterways when there’s heavy rain, contaminating not only bodies of water, but also the water that’s used irrigate food crops. and if there’s e. coli present there’s also a higher likelihood that
other harmful bacteria
exist as well, such as
cryptosporidium, giardia, shigella, and norovirus
.