Bay Park in downtown Sarasota earns a D
In its report on the safety of swimming sites in Sarasota and Manatee counties in 2025 — released on Jan. 22 — the nonprofit Suncoast Waterkeeper — based in Sarasota — found that of 12 popular sites in Manatee and Sarasota counties, the one in Sarasota County with the best water quality was offshore of the Sarasota Sailing Squadron.
The Squadron is located on City Island, fronting Sarasota Bay.
That site earned a B, with the report noting that it was characterized as “Swimmable” during 88% of the weeks in 2025.
Conversely, The Bay Park in downtown Sarasota earned a D, with the report noting that it was swimmable during only 63% of the weeks last year.
“Our goal is to empower people with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions before entering our bays and waterways,” said Abbey Tyrna, executive director and waterkeeper of Suncoast Waterkeeper, in an accompanying news release. “By tracking trends over time,” she continued, “we hope this information helps keep water recreators healthy today while also driving the long-term solutions needed to protect the Suncoast’s waters for the future.”
The report explains that Suncoast Waterkeeper’s testing mirrors that of the Florida Department of Health’s (DOH) Healthy Beaches Program “to determine safe-to-swim conditions. The DOH uses enterococci as key fecal indicator bacteria because they correlate strongly with swimming-associated gastrointestinal illness, especially in marine water.”
As Environmental Administrator Tom Higginbotham of the Florida Department of Health-Sarasota (DOH-Sarasota) has pointed out when DOH staff has issued swim advisories, “People, especially those who are very young, elderly or who have a weak immune system that swallow water while swimming can get stomach or intestinal illnesses. If water contacts a cut or sore, people can get infections or rashes.”
Suncoast Waterkeeper measures enterococci per 100 milliliters of tidal water, the report adds.
“A swimmable week,” the report notes, “is when enterococci counts are lower than 71 per 100 milliliters (mL).” It adds, “Results of 71 or higher are considered unsafe, as epidemiological studies show a heightened risk of contracting a bacteria-related illness (32 out of every 10,000 swimmers) at this level of water contact.”
It also notes, “The swimmability grade is based on how many weeks each monitored location is considered safe for swimming each year.”
The grades are as follows:
- A — 90% to 100%.
- B — 80% to 89%.
- C — 70% to 79%.
- D — 60% to 69%.
- F — less than 59%.
Among other Sarasota County sites, Indian Beach, in the northern part of the county, earned an F; the figure for its swimmable weeks was 58%.
Additionally, the report explains that, according to standards for fecal indicator bacteria, enterococci counts should not exceed the 10% threshold value (TPTV) of 130 in 10% or more samples during any 30-day period for Class II and Class III waters.
One section of the report uses color-coded boxes to show the aggregation of “weekly exceedance data aggregated by month for 2025 and 2024.” The report notes, “This tool is valuable for quickly identifying watershed where sites are at risk of formal impairment,” which is denoted by boxes shaded from yellow to red. Green represents the fact that enterococci counts exceeded the TBTV in only one weekly sample in a given month. Yellow means that the count exceeded the TPTV in two to three weekly samples for one month, while red represents the fact that the enterococci counts were above the TPTV in four to five weekly samples in a given month. White boxes denote that no data was collected that month.
Yet another section of the report explains that, thanks to funding from the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, Suncoast Waterkeeper staff began monitoring seven other sites in August 2025. Among those were the area off the Siesta Drive bridge to Siesta Key, Turtle Beach/Blind Pass on south Siesta Key, and the North Jetty in Nokomis.
The resulting chart shows that December 2025 was the best month for all of them except Turtle Beach. The latter’s box was the only one not shaded green; instead, it was yellow.
The box for the area of water off the Siesta Drive bridge was shaded red in November 2025. Yet, Turtle Beach had boxes in red for both September and October 2025.
Of all seven locations for which this newer monitoring has been taking place, the report shows, Vamo Drive Park had the worst water quality, with boxes shaded in red for August, September and October 2025. None of the others had more than two boxes in red.
The report does include one section regarding potential bacteria sources. It notes that 2025 “was a unique year where we observed high enterococci counts, without extreme weather events in our area.” In an effort to learn the sources of the bacteria in the water, the Suncoast Waterkeeper staff “examined both potential human and non-human pollutant sources. It listed the sources in alphabetical order:
The report adds that the staff is reviewing the sources “and evaluating each of our monitored locations on a case-by-case basis, acknowledging that each site and its surrounding waterbody” has a unique set of pollution sources.
Various graphics sin the report how the locations of stormwater outfalls, sewer lift stations and wastewater facilities where the discharge is regulated.
Suncoast Waterkeeper’s water quality monitoring program receives support from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, as well as the Barancik Foundation, the news release notes.
“Results from weekly monitoring, including our newly expanded program from Siesta Key to Lemon Bay, are published every Friday on the Suncoast Waterkeeper Safe to Swim page, Facebook, Instagram, and Water Reporter,” the report points out.