Michigan City Parks and Recreation Board members on May 7 approved the city’s annual water-quality testing agreement with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, accepting a grant that reduces the frequency of E. coli sampling at Washington Park and two other beach sites.

Park staff told the board the federal Beach Act funding that flows through IDEM was cut this year, and that change forced a cut in the number of daily samples. "So that's been reduced to 1 sample at each location, but 7 days a week," Shannon Eason, park superintendent, said.

The city’s sampling is performed by the local sanitary district and the park department handles public notification: signs at the beach for green/yellow warnings, a phone hotline, a text/app alert and the parks website. Eason said the testing program has run for almost 20 years and that the new agreement maintains seven-day monitoring though at lower daily frequency.

During public comment, resident Scott Nolan said the reduction is a direct result of federal budget cuts and urged the public to be aware of the change. "I think it's important for the public to understand that's directly attributable to what's happening in Washington and cutting their budgets," Nolan said.

The board voted to accept the grant and authorized electronic signature for the agreement; the motion passed with the usual voice vote. Park staff will continue to post beach advisories and run the notification systems as test results arrive.

The agreement is part of the federal-state Beach Act program administered by IDEM; sanitary district staff carry out sampling and laboratory analysis, and the parks department issues public advisories based on those results.