Officials with the Iowa Environmental Council (IEC), today (Friday), released their Beach Advisory for the week of July 22nd. There are eight 8 beach advisories this week, seven of which advisories are related to unhealthy E.coli levels:

• Backbone Beach (Dundee, Delaware County, IA)*
• Big Creek Beach (Polk City, Polk County, IA)*
• Black Hawk Beach (Lake View, Sac County, IA)*
• Lake Darling Beach (Brighton, Washington County, IA)*
• Lake of Three Fires Beach (Bedford, Taylor County, IA)* [temporarily closed; see note below]
• McIntosh Woods Beach (Clear Lake, Ventura, Cerro Gordo County, IA)*
• Prairie Rose Beach (Harlan, Shelby County, IA)*

There is also one beach with a Microcystin-related Advisory: Geode Beach (Danville, Des Moines County, IA)*

*Data from the Iowa DNR State Park Beach Monitoring Program
**Data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District

Lake of Three Fires is temporarily closed for swimming.
A Missouri resident who swam in Lake of Three Fires had a confirmed infection and passed away from Naegleria fowleri, commonly known as the “brain-eating amoeba.” There is no new information to share at this time other than the beach has been sampled and the samples have been sent to the CDC laboratory. The beach will remain closed pending test results. Additionally, the test results for E. coli exceed the advisory threshold this week.