Swim Guide

Nationwide it’s just about that time, school’s out time, aka beach time for many families. But with stories so often on the news about garbage, bacteria, all sorts of unsavory stuff washing up on a shore near you, the next must-have app for beach bums is here. It’s called Swim Guide. Created by the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper it uses information from government agencies that monitor water quality to tell you which beaches near you have the safest water: Safest in terms of pollution, not factors like wave size or riptide. Beaches are labeled green, yellow, or red. Green means it has historically passed water quality tests at least 95 percent of the time. Yellow means a passing grade of 60 to 95 percent of the time and red means there’s a don’t-go-there-warning at the moment. The app also gives you information and pictures of beaches and gives you an opportunity to report pollution if you see it and even take pictures. Right now there are about 1,500 beaches in the database in the U.S. and some in Canada. Swim Guide is a free app for iOS and Android devices though can be accessed via any browser at TheSwimGuide.org.