Save King’s Beach has expanded its research beyond Swampscott, extending its efforts into Nahant.

The organization was originally founded to make King’s Beach safe, clean and swimmable by eliminating pollution caused by the sewer infrastructure and local storm drains. Through public engagement and awareness efforts, the initiative later expanded to Fisherman’s Beach.

Now, Save King’s Beach has established its own lab to conduct beach water quality testing at Nahant Beach.

“This year, our focus shifted more toward Nahant Beach because it’s sort of the unknown. It’s only been ever tested on a weekly basis,” said Andrea Amour, who founded Save King’s Beach in 2021. “Last year, based on those weekly readings, it actually had its worst year on record, so we wanted to investigate.”

Water quality issues have long been a topic of concern in Swampscott, Lynn and Nahant. The most largely talked about problem is King’s Beach, which has complications dating back nearly a century when Stacey’s Brook, which empties into the beach, was converted into a sewer and stormwater system for both Lynn and Swampscott. According to Lynn’s website, King’s Beach failed nearly half of its water quality tests in 2023.

The Lynn-Swampscott beach received a 66% safety score in 2024 from Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s water quality report card.

Swampscott and Lynn have partnered up this summer to start an ultraviolet (UV) treatment project at King’s Beach that uses UV light to kill bacteria in the stormwater drainage before it reaches the ocean, ultimately creating a cleaner beach for Swampscott and Lynn residents. 

That said, the issues seem to potentially be permeating into Nahant. Nahant’s safety score dropped two points from 2023, now sitting at 78%, according to Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s report.

This accounts for Nahant Beach’s worst year on record.

“We’re not quite sure what the actual impact is but we’re hoping that either through stakeholder funding or more private funding, we could actually increase our testing and go beyond when the UV pilot is off,” Amour said. “Because one thing we’re thinking is that maybe the reason that Nahant is showing up cleaner this year is because of the UV pilot project. That’s the one thing that’s really different between 2024’s data and 2025’s.”

In its June report card, Save the Harbor/Save the Bay announced a partnership with the Department of Conservation and Recreation, 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 tests,” Save the Harbor/Save the Bay said in a statement in June.

According to Save King’s Beach, leadership transitions at the Department of Conservation and Recreation “got in the way of our efforts,” so the group had to team up with Northeastern University and create its own lab.

Now, the lab has been up and running for two and a half weeks.

“We haven’t come to any firm conclusions yet, but it’s been really interesting,” Amour said. “We’ve learned a lot about the overall cleanliness of Nahant Beach.” 

The group is looking into rainfall’s effects on the bacteria levels, the relationship with the levels and algae presence and just the overall trend of daily water sample data.

“We want to literally fill in the holes because when you’re doing weekly data sampling on a Tuesday, by the weekend, none of these beachgoers have an accurate representation of what’s going on at the beach,” Amour said. 

Northeastern master’s student Hannah Bray has conducted tests at the five locations along Nahant Beach and Lynn Shore Beach. Professor Aron Stubbins is advising and overseeing the lab.

Bray fills containers with 100 milliliters of distilled water and takes out 10 milliliters, replacing it with 10 milliliters of the sample. They are placed in a hot incubator, at 41 degrees Celcius, plus or minus .5 degrees Celcius. 

Within 24 to 28 hours, the results are able to be read. 

“It’s great to be able to demystify water quality testing and prove that anybody can do it effectively,” Amour said.

To get the samples, Bray wades into the water to where it is about three-feet deep, at each of the five locations. 

Each test costs about $20, according to Save King’s Beach. The estimated cost for the five-week study is about $6,000 to cover the testing materials and Bray’s pay. 

Save King’s Beach is currently accepting donations at its site at savekingsbeach.com/donate.

Beachgoers 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, Nahant Beach is open. The site does list King’s Beach as closed on the Swampscott side.

Updated August 5 at 9:30 p.m. to clarify testing result timing