King’s Beach ranked the lowest among the 15 beaches inspected in Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s 2024 water quality report card.
The 2024 beach season water quality report card uses data collected by the Department of Conservation and Recreation to assess water quality at public beaches, including King’s Beach. The Lynn-Swampscott beach received a 66% safety score in 2024.
“We elevated this issue back in 2021,” Save the Harbor/Save the Bay Executive Director Chris Mancini said, adding that the results were somewhat predictable.
There was an increase in safety for King’s Beach from 2023, when the rating was 55%. However, King’s Beach hasn’t surpassed a 75% safety score since 2019.
The overall safety rating for the past five years is 69%, which is also the lowest out of the 15 beaches inspected.
Save the Harbor/Save the Bay continues to invest in the Boston Harbor, its islands and the region’s public beaches. The group provides free programs and events.
Pleasure Bay and City Point kept their consistent 100% safety score in the 2024 report card. Nantasket dropped a bit to 92%. Revere received an 86% safety rating.
“Through decades of smart policies and investment in critical infrastructure, our beaches continue to remain safe, clean spaces for gathering and enjoyment,” said
State Sen. Brendan Crighton (3rd Essex District), who is also the co-chair of the Metropolitan Beaches Commission. “With the acceleration of climate change and growing threats to this environmental progress, we must double down on that commitment to ensure our beaches remain resilient, equitable
spaces for everyone.”
Savin Hill in Dorchester was the next-lowest ranked beach. Mancini suggested the 68% score may be “simply coincidental” due to testing schedules, noting it typically perfors as well as nearby Malibu Beach. The 68% safety score was a large drop for Savin Hill, from 80% the year before.
Efforts to clean up King’s Beach have been a long time coming. Lynn and Swampscott have launched an ultraviolet (UV) pilot program, which will attempt to kill wastewater bacteria with UV light. The program was halted due to seaweed interfering with the technology.
In 2023, King’s Beach failed nearly half of its water quality tests, according to Lynn’s website.
“King’s Beach has been closed to swimming most days due to elevated bacteria levels,” the website reads. “These elevated bacteria levels are the result of drainage flowing onto the beach from the two outfalls located at the City of Lynn /Town of Swampscott line near Eastern Avenue, Lynn Shore Drive and Humphrey Street. The red flags frequently flying at the beach indicate the water is unsafe for swimming due to bacteria levels.”
The root of King’s Beach’s water quality issues dates back nearly a century, when Stacey’s Brook, which empties into the beach, was converted into a sewer and stormwater system for Lynn and Swampscott. This is to say that there is a daily flow of drainage into King’s Beach, unlike other beaches in the Boston Harbor area, Mancini said.
“That is still the issue,” Mancini said. “That is the root of the issue.”
The Lynn Water and Sewer Commission separated the two systems about 25 years ago. Swampscott lined about half of the pipes two years ago and has begun to treat the remaining areas, but the contamination has not gone away.
“The solution is not glamorous,” Mancini said. “We’re really hoping that that and the analogous work they’re doing in Lynn would solve the issue…but regardless, the stormwater system is going to drain into King’s Beach.”
The issues at King’s Beach may also be affecting nearby Nahant. Nahant’s safety score went down two percentage points from 2023, now at 78%, according to the report.
“In an effort to understand what is happening at Nahant Beach, we are partnering with DCR, Save King’s Beach and Northeastern University to collect daily samples this summer. We hope the additional data will indicate either that there is a declining trend at
this beach – possibly due to warming ocean temperatures or a new source of contamination – or that it’s simply coincidental variability due to the timing of the weekly test.”
In the past few days, however, there seems to be some anecdotal evidence that the King’s beach water is “weirdly clear,” Mancini said. While there are “a lot of variables,” from timing to location of testing, the collected samples from the beach did not spike following the rain.
Beach goers are able to check the bacteria levels at the Department of Public Health’s interactive website. The data is on a 24-hour lag, however.
At the time of writing, the site lists King’s Beach as open. Mancini did note that people should almost always be safe if they go to the Red Rock area of King’s Beach, which is the furthest point from the brook and consistently tests at 80 to 90% safety levels.
