County Health Dept. Closes Rye Beaches

See our story from Thursday, August 10th.

(Updated, 12:30pm 8/9/23)

It will be sunny, 85 degrees with a high chance of bacteria on Wednesday.

The Westchester County Department of Health has closed Rye beaches for Wednesday, August 9, 2023. Managers of both Rye Town Park’s Oakland Beach and Playland Beach were instructed by the DOH late Tuesday to close beaches to the public.

“To the best of anybody’s recollection, its [a health department mandated beach closure] never happened to Rye Town Park,” said Rye Town Park Director Russ Gold.

The DOH is expected to re-test waters Wednesday and notify the beaches if and when they are able to re-open.

Update: The County DOH has closed nine beaches across the County today (Wednesday). These include American Yacht Club and Coveleigh Club (which was already closed due to rain) in addition to Rye Town Park’s Oakland Beach and Playland Beach.

Christopher Ericson, deputy commissioner of environmental health for Westchester County, told MyRye.com it issues permits for all regulated swimming beaches in Westchester County. Beaches must meet the water quality standards and monitoring regulations., specifically the NYS Sanitary Code Subpart 6-2 (Bathing Beaches) and the Westchester County Sanitary Code.

Beaches are sampled once a week for enterococcus bacteria. When levels exceed the state standard, beaches are closed and resampled until samples meet the standard. In addition, there is a group of beaches in Mamaroneck Harbor and close proximity that are closed preemptively when rainfall amounts exceed .50 inches because of historically high levels of bacteria after excess rain.