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Looking @ a house one town over that’s on a canal. I want to know if the water there is safe to swim in. Is there a database or a website somewhere with this information?
Dawg, if your on the canal and you have access to a boat/water craft you will probably want to go out to the bay. Some people even cross over the bay and head over to the ocean beaches in their own boats.
But if you insist on staying on the canal I would say the water quality depends.
For instance, many canals are actually part of a creek system. Check a map to see if the water continues north of Merrick/Montauk Highway. Then it is part of a creek with a current which flushes some of the water out to the bay. This is very common in the Towns of Babylon and Islip in Suffolk County.
If however the canal is manmade (usually with a dead end) then you are going to have to observe the water yourself. Some canals are bigger or the water flushes out more, some do not. I would imagine that the closer you to the open end of the canal (towards the bay) the better the water quality is.
If you are looking at Babylon (Amityville, Copiague, Lindenhurst, Babylon) then you should know the Town has as least two Town beaches directly on Great South Bay - Tanner Park in Copiague and Venetian Shores in Lindenhurst. There are probably smaller ones as well. IMHO, they are going to be better for swimming then a local canal.
I was horsing around on a jet ski in a canal a few years back. I fell off and went under water. I woke up the next day with the worst case of swimmers ear you could possibly have. Took a week full of strong antibiotics to get rid of it. And that was the last time I ever got in canal water.
Dawg, if your on the canal and you have access to a boat/water craft you will probably want to go out to the bay. Some people even cross over the bay and head over to the ocean beaches in their own boats.
But if you insist on staying on the canal I would say the water quality depends.
For instance, many canals are actually part of a creek system. Check a map to see if the water continues north of Merrick/Montauk Highway. Then it is part of a creek with a current which flushes some of the water out to the bay. This is very common in the Towns of Babylon and Islip in Suffolk County.
If however the canal is manmade (usually with a dead end) then you are going to have to observe the water yourself. Some canals are bigger or the water flushes out more, some do not. I would imagine that the closer you to the open end of the canal (towards the bay) the better the water quality is.
If you are looking at Babylon (Amityville, Copiague, Lindenhurst, Babylon) then you should know the Town has as least two Town beaches directly on Great South Bay - Tanner Park in Copiague and Venetian Shores in Lindenhurst. There are probably smaller ones as well. IMHO, they are going to be better for swimming then a local canal.
Islip has similar Town beaches on the bay.
We don’t have a boat right now but yes that is the plan at some point. We also don’t have a pool… It would really be nice to just be able to jump in the water right in my backyard
I grew up in Suffolk county when it was nothing but duck farms & potato fields. I've witnessed the death of the shellfishing industry in the Great South bay from the runoff caused by development. The Long Island Sound has pretty much bounced back after being nearly killed off in the 60's but I'd stay out of the bay and the canals.
It's fine sheesh. I wouldn't drink it, but I wouldn't drink pool water either.
My kid and I jump in the canal all the time on a hot day in the summer. The neighbors too.
Where is your canal?
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