SWAMPSCOTT — As summer beach season gets underway, the town is launching an expanded water-quality monitoring effort at Fisherman’s Beach.

During Tuesday’s meeting of the Water and Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee, members discussed a range of testing initiatives across town this summer. One of the main focuses will be Fisherman’s Beach, one of the town’s busiest waterfronts.

“The priority at Fisherman’s Beach, in terms of beach water sampling for bacteria, is focused on the swimming area … and supporting the rec department and programs,” WSIAC Chair Kelley Begin said. 

The expanded monitoring effort also comes as the town continues work toward improving the sewer and stormwater infrastructure believed to contribute to bacteria contamination at King’s Beach.

The testing is intended in part to measure whether recent improvements are having an impact. Since intensive monitoring was conducted two years ago, the town has completed sewer lateral and sewer main work associated with the Marshall Street outfall area, though DPW Assistant Engineer Mark Noonan said additional sewer work on that side of town is still underway.

Testing at Fisherman’s this summer will be spearheaded by the Board of Health. Member George Allen attended the meeting and outlined the board’s approach.

“Things have changed a bit since the last meeting with this committee,” he said. “What we are going to do is focus on the swimming area at Fisherman’s, probably five days a week … Monday to Friday, more or less.” 

Allen said the Fisherman’s Beach testing program is largely designed as a follow-up to the earlier study.

“The testing of this year is really a follow-up on the intensive testing two years ago where they did see some problems,” Allen said. “Either way we expect it to be better than two years ago.”

As part of the effort, samples will also be collected directly from culverts and stormwater infrastructure in an attempt to identify remaining sources of bacteria entering local waterways, though Allen said he was not certain how often culverts would be tested. 

Allen also said that the town’s Director of Public Health, Jeffrey Vaughan, is expected to begin water sampling this week. That testing will be completed every Wednesday throughout the summer at each of the town’s six beaches. 

While much of the summer testing will focus on Fisherman’s Beach, committee members repeatedly tied the work back to the larger challenges facing King’s Beach and the town’s ongoing efforts to reduce bacteria contamination.

Allen noted that Swampscott remains under a federal consent decree related to sewer and stormwater issues and said testing alone will not satisfy the agreement’s requirements.

“How you get out of the consent decree is not by testing for bacteria, it’s demonstrating you’ve done the work to fix the infrastructure,” Allen said. “So you could argue the beach testing doesn’t support that directly, but it certainly supports public health.”

Committee members said the monitoring program will help determine whether years of infrastructure work are producing measurable improvements, while also helping officials identify any remaining problem areas, but Begin cautioned that meaningful change will take time.

“It took us 150 years of doing not a lot to get to where we are,” Begin said. “And it’s not going to happen overnight.”