By Dave Benoit
Special to the Reporter

The waters off Boston's beaches have been given a lot of descriptive words over the years. Most of those words contained some variance of dirty, sewage, or just plain deadly. "Oasis" and "Cape-like" were certainly not some of those modifiers.

But now, thanks to extended efforts of city legislators, environmental groups, and health officials, those two phrases were applied to the local beaches at a press conference last Friday to announce a new grant from the Environmental Protection Agency aimed at keeping Boston beaches safe for swimming.

The $254,440 check was presented to the Massachusetts Department of Health at Carson Beach, where community officials gathered to celebrate the change in the water and the future of their public beaches.

State Senator Jack Hart, who emceed the event, spoke of his history with the beaches, the importance they have for Boston residents, adding that last year was probably his first time swimming in the water in about 25 years.

"James Michael Curley, when he built the L Street Bathhouse, called this area an 'oasis in the city.' That's what this is, it's a reprieve for people that live in the city to be able to walk down the beaches and enjoy what always has been, and what will continue to be, a Cape-like environment."

The check that was presented will be a major part of a new testing plan that will quicken and improve on the system that currently determines which beaches are safe for swimming. Today the only way that beaches are deemed swimmable is based on the data collected the previous day. New studies will change that.

"We are very fortunate in New England to have these beautiful beaches all along the coastline but, unfortunately, last year many of these beaches were closed to swimming," said Ken Moraff, the deputy director of the Office of Environmental Protection. "There were about 1,300 beach days lost to swimming last summer, and we will not accept that. We have a very short summer in New England, every day is precious to us, and we will not rest until every single beach is open every single day.

"These methods will help us get faster results when we test the water quality to see if the beach is safe for swimming. We would like to base our decision on whether a beach should be open on today's data not yesterday's or the day's before."

Vivian Li, the executive director of the Boston Harbor Association said that tens of thousands of people use Boston beaches every week, and it is for them that this work needs to be done.

"Our organization and the elected officials that have been working on this for more than a decade are committed to making sure that Boston Harbor beaches and beaches in general become common ground for all people."

But this information and technology is only the first step in the quest to making the beaches of Boston a little closer to Florida's South Beach, said Bruce Berman, communications director of Save the Harbor / Save the Bay.

"This isn't about sewage and it isn't about testing and it isn't about government. It's really about a spectacular resource. It's why we live here, for many of us, it's the payoff for those long cold winters, the return of our investment," he said. "[Today] means we are one step closer to better beaches, and that's all you can ask for in any given day."