Swimming risk raised at Portage beach front

Given that Ogden Dunes beach, right next to the Portage lakefront, has a record as having very few beach closures, it does not seem very likely that the Portage beach, with nothing but an imaginary borderline in between, would be a whole lot more polluted. I suspect that the concern is an exaggeration.

In either case, the problem is not with the new park, but with the polluted Burns Ditch. The concern should be with the Ditch being one of the biggest sources of pollution on the south shore. The solution is not to abandon the beach to pollution, but to clean up the Ditch. It will be a big job to do that, but it needs to get started.

Having been involved with the design of this project, I have heard the question of cleaning up Burns Ditch raised repeatedly.
Although it was not within the scope of the park project to clean up Burns Ditch, by giving access to the beach we hope that there would be raised awareness of the pollution from Burns Ditch. When visitors from surrounding communities in the watershed find that the beach is closed or filthy and ask why, they may find that the source of the pollution may be from their very own backyards.