You can still swim in Avocado Lake despite high levels of E. coli, officials say

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - Avocado Lake, which is typically filled with swimmers, was quiescent Friday.

“We conscionable counsel that [people] should beryllium precise cautious with that aboveground h2o close now,” Environmental Health Specialist Matthew Gore said.

Gore works with the Fresno County Department of Health, which received a disturbing announcement from the California Water Board connected Thursday.

“They informed america of elevated levels of E. coli bacteria that were detected determination astatine Avocado Beach,” Gore said.

The committee noticed a important spike during their play test.

Gore says the mean E. coli level is 320. On Thursday, it reached 2,419.6.

“E. coli is simply a household of bacteria that is recovered successful warm-blooded animals,” Gore said. “It’s chartless astatine this constituent what the circumstantial root of the contamination is.”

He emphasized the dangers of E. coli, but said the quality doesn’t mean radical person to debar the water.

“It's a bully thought to rinse disconnected afterwards, to lavation your hands earlier you eat, to effort not to ingest oregon inhale that h2o that you're playing in,“ Gore said.

He says the bacteria tin lavation distant arsenic rapidly arsenic they arrived, apt by adjacent week’s test.

“The h2o is perpetually flowing and benignant of replacing itself, and truthful the contamination volition determination away,” Gore said.