Keeping the Third Coast safe, ‘one beach at a time’ 

William Kane pulls up to North Avenue Beach at 5:25 a.m. He sports a lime-colored safety vest and holds two plastic bottles. 

The air is heavy with humidity, and a pink-and-orange sunrise lights the sky. Gulls circle overhead, their calls drowning out the nocturnal chirps of crickets and croaks of frogs. The sand is freshly combed but tracked with footprints from early-morning joggers. 

Kane, a second-year master’s student in the UIC School of Public Health, wades into Lake Michigan up to his knees. He unscrews the lid of one bottle and lets the tide wash in. 

Science on the beach 

Kane is one of 17 student contributors to Chicago’s beach water testing program, a 10-year collaboration between UIC and the Chicago Park District to test water quality and issue safety advisories to swimmers. 

Every morning from Memorial Day to Labor Day, undergraduate and graduate student researchers retrieve and test water samples from local beaches and report the results to the Chicago Park District. No other U.S. cities test their water daily, said Kane, who has done beach water sampling as well as lab testing and is now a project supervisor. 

“I started as an undergraduate and worked my way up. We have a great work culture here — lots of people stick around for multiple years and make friends,” he said about the Water Microbiology Research Laboratory, which hosts the program in the UIC School of Public Health. 

Starting at first light, three beach water technicians get samples from 18 Chicago beaches, dividing the beaches among themselves. Beaches range from the northernmost Mahony Griffin Beach to the southernmost Calumet Beach. The samplers fill two bottles at each stop, dipping about 6 inches below the surface and at least 100 yards apart. 

By 7:45 a.m., the samplers skid through city traffic. At 8 a.m., they hand off their bottles to lab technicians at the UIC School of Public Health West loading dock.  

From the lab bench to Leone Beach 

In total, 56 bottles of Lake Michigan water make it to the lab: 36 from Chicago’s beaches and 20 from neighboring North Shore suburbs Evanston and Winnetka. 

Research specialist Nabeeha Tabani waits with fellow microbiology lab technicians. Tabani recently earned dual bachelor’s degrees in psychology and rehabilitation sciences from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Applied Health Sciences, respectively. With four years of water sampling and lab experience, Tabani is the team’s most senior member. 

“I started sampling to learn more about Chicago and its beaches,” she said. “Then, I wanted to see how the water is tested behind the scenes. This opportunity allowed me to do both.” 

In the lab, Tabani tests the samples for enterococci bacteria, which can indicate contamination by fecal waste. If enough is ingested, enterococci can make swimmers sick. 

First, Tabani pours the samples through filter paper to corral any bacterial cells lurking in the water. She next slips the filter paper into a test tube, which is processed with two machines: first to break open the bacterial cells and extract their DNA, and second, to isolate that DNA extract. Finally, the DNA extract undergoes a rapid quantitative polymerase chain reaction, or qPCR, which tracks the bacteria’s concentration in real time with fluorescent dye. 

A supervisor emails the results to the Chicago Park District between 11 a.m. and noon, completing the process before the sun peaks.  

Tabani said working in the lab pulls public health issues to top-of-mind. 

“Not everyone has access to the quality of water we do,” Tabani said. “I’m proud to provide the public with water quality information as they visit the beaches with their friends, families and dogs.” 

A decade of beach monitoring 

By late morning, the Chicago Park District shares the results with flocks of beachgoing city-dwellers and visitors. 

Based on bacteria levels and other factors like wind and weather, flags raised on each beach indicate whether swimming in the lake is permitted (green), advised with caution (yellow) or banned altogether (red). Beach safety information and lab data are also available on the park district’s website. 

“Water quality testing is important to public safety,” said Chicago Park District Project Manager Maggie Warren. “This partnership enables the Park District to make testing results available for public awareness in an expedited manner. During the beach season, this process ensures quality conditions for residents and visitors who frequent the beaches and lakefront and allows them to make informed decisions about their health when planning a trip to the beach.”

The effort that goes into the testing process is invisible to most beach visitors, said project director Abhilasha Shrestha, a water quality researcher and research assistant professor in the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. 

Shrestha has been involved with the project since it started in 2015. Three years earlier, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency introduced the real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction method to test water rapidly, and the Chicago Park District sought a partner to implement the method in Lake Michigan. Before the qPCR method, water testing could take 18-24 hours. 

“It didn’t make sense, because you were telling people to swim or not to swim based on data from the previous day,” Shrestha said. “With the qPCR method, we can provide same-morning results in three to four hours.” 

In its pilot year, the beach water testing project sampled five beaches, four days per week. In 2016, the project expanded to nine beaches, five days per week. The growing team tested 20 beaches, seven days per week from 2017 to 2019. Since then, the City of Evanston and the Winnetka Park District added 10 beaches, and erosion eliminated two in Chicago, bringing the total to 28. 

“This collaboration does a great job of showcasing how lab science can inform policy and help protect public health, giving UIC students firsthand experience of the entire process,” Shrestha said. 

The next 10 years 

Chicago’s beach water monitoring program stands out among its peers, and Shrestha intends to keep innovating. This summer, UIC researchers will survey beachgoers’ awareness of the flag system to optimize communication with the public. 

“I hope this program can be an example to the rest of the U.S. and the world,” Shrestha said. “It’s all about building trust through science and improving public health, one beach day at a time.” 

Since 2015, almost 90 students have set their alarms, donned neon vests or spent hot summer mornings in the air-conditioned lab, Kane among them. He said spreading the word about the project is the most rewarding part. 

“There’s a gentleman who walks his dog early, and I used to see him most mornings,” Kane said. “He’d always yell, ‘You all have the best job in the city!’ And honestly, I agree.”