We had no idea you could go online to get the, uh, water quality data for local beaches like Coney Island until the excellent blog GerritsenBeach.net posted it. (In recent weeks, the blog has broken both that weird story about the idea in Manhattan Beach to privatize the beach and about the vandalism of those new glassy bus shelters.) So, we’re brazenly borrowing from GBN here, again. If you want to find out what the enterococci count is at your favorite beach you can go to the city’s Beach Quality and Safety page. What’s enterococci, you ask? Well, let’s say that a key word in guessing what it is is Enterococcus faecalis. Right now, the poo-related bacteria count at Coney Island and other area beaches is totally within acceptable limits!!! So, surf’s up!

If you go to the beach and go in the water and, uh, get sick, the city also has an online Beach Complaint form you can fill out. That’s a screen cap below, so we won’t dwell on what it says you can check off, like sewage in the water and the gross symptoms you might be experiencing.