The Boston Globe32%
Boston area beaches among safest for swimming in the US. Can the improved water quality last? 35%
By Audrey Tomlin50%
7/15/2026, 12:33:55 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Optimism Bias, and Negativity Bias, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 28.3% saturation with 263 hits. Analysis detected 1,208 faulty-reasoning hits from 930 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 42.4% and a BS Rank of 35% (10,564 of 16,138 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 65.50% of the article peer group.
LYNN — Growing up here, state Senator Brendan Crighton doesn’t remember visiting the city’s only sand beach.
For as long as he can recall, people in Lynn knew King’s Beach was often not safe for swimming.
Then last summer, for the first time, Crighton swam at King’s Beach with his two children, ages 6 and 10.
King’s still experiences high bacteria levels, experts and advocates warned.
But for an urban beach long notorious for its pollution, it has come a far way: Last year, King’s Beach passed 90 percent of water quality tests, after posting much lower results in the preceding years.
That progress is broadly reflected throughout the Boston area as the region ranked as having some of the cleanest metropolitan beaches in the United States last year, according to the most recent annual report from Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a nonprofit that’s advocated for the cleanup of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay since 1986.
Last year was the first that every urban beach in Greater Boston passed more than 80 percent of the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s water quality tests, the nonprofit reported.
That meant, most days, you could go into the water at area beaches because bacterial levels were low.
But, as King’s Beach shows, keeping these waters swimmable is an ongoing battle, with most experts attributing last year’s improvements to a lack of rainfall.
“We do still have a lot of challenges ahead,” said Crighton, who also leads the Metropolitan Beaches Commission, a state committee tasked with examining urban beaches.
“For most folks, we’re not summering down the Cape or up at the lakes, right?
Our beaches are our summer. . . .
This wonderful asset has been inaccessible to families for generations.
For us, it’s an injustice.”
While overall beach water quality shows improvement, the milestone follows years of fluctuating test results.
As of Wednesday, 40 beaches in Massachusetts, including King’s Beach, were flagged by the state for unsafe bacteria levels.
The bacterial problems in Lynn are largely traced to Stacey’s Brook, which empties into the ocean at King’s Beach.
Over the years, the brook was often polluted by a combined stormwater and sewage drain during storms, according to Andrea Amour, founder of the advocacy organization Save King’s Beach.
But, while Lynn has begun to separate the two systems, the brook continues to be polluted by sewage from illicit connections, she said.
On a sunny day in June ideal for the beach, caution signs were plastered on the ramp leading down to King’s.
“Warning,” one sign read, “No swimming.”
A similar sign, this time in all red, was zip-tied across the front of the beach’s “Welcome” plaque.
Visitors can check what beaches are closed for swimming using the Department of Public Health’s Beach Water Quality Dashboard.
Even as efforts to improve water quality continue across cities and towns in Greater Boston, experts and advocates, alongside community members in areas where beaches have suffered from water pollution for decades, caution there’s still much work to be done.
Boston has made efforts at reducing stormwater runoff and overspill.
In 2015, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority finished implementing a series of projects aimed at reducing sewage overflow in Greater Boston.
Currently, in parts of the city, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission is replacing drains or separating combined sewer systems into independent stormwater and sewage pipes.
The city is also putting in more green infrastructure that would allow rainfall to soak into plants, soil, and other natural materials.
At King’s Beach, Lynn and neighboring Swampscott last year piloted a program that used ultraviolet light to disinfect sewage.
Most experts and advocates say the issues of rain flushing bacteria into the sea from storm drains is a difficult, perhaps even impossible, problem to eradicate.
“I mean, if you have an intense storm, you’re going to have a beach closure, right?”
Crighton said.
“It’s just, it’s inevitable.”
Still, everyone seemed to agree there’s much more to be improved.
Mancini pointed to patching cracks in sewer pipes and fixing illicit connections that carry sewage into storm drains.
Amour advocated for cleaning catch basins, which initially collect rainwater, more frequently and flushing storm drain systems once a year during the off-season.
“People in leadership say, ‘Oh, we’re never going to solve this problem.
It’s always going to be a problem,’” she said.
“But I’m like, ‘You can’t say that yet.
Come back to me in another few years, after you buttoned everything up, then come back to me, and tell me you can’t do it.’”
Cleaning King’s Beach is a top priority in Lynn, Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson said.
“So far this year, another dry summer, the beach has been closed much more frequently that what we think is acceptable,” Nicholson said in a statement.
“We will keep pushing to make this resource available.”
For now, though, Lynn residents seem to be making the most of their only sand beach.
On that same day in June, despite the warning signs, a few people walked along the water’s edge, dipping their toes into the wet sand.
One woman edged closer as her dog splashed in the sea.
Above, people filled the walkway, chatting, jogging, pushing strollers, walking dogs, just sitting, looking out at the view.
Amour, too, still enjoys the beach.
“King’s Beach is still my favorite place to run, and one day I’m going to be able to swim in it too, and take my family there,” she said.
“That’s what we’re fighting for.”
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