May 21, 2012 Updated May 21, 2012 at 12:45 PM CDT

Duluth, MN (Northlands NewsCenter) Monitoring of Lake Superior beaches will begin after Memorial Day.

The Minnesota Department of Health will be monitoring the water quality along the Lake Superior shoreline from Duluth to Grand Marais, which includes 39 public beaches.

Staff will be checking the water to detect the presence of E.coli bacteria or other harmful pathogens or contamination.

The samples will be analyzed once a week from the beaches, while samples from the most heavily used beaches will be analyzed twice weekly.

The results will be posted immediately to the telephone hotline and beach website at http://www.MNBeaches.org.

If E.Coli is detected in the samples and exceeds certain standards, MDH staff will post an advisory on the beach and issue public notices through the website. Typically, if samples exceed the standards, the MDH recommends no water contact.

Last year, of 755 samples taken, 13.5% of them triggered water contact advisories.

A significant part of the states coastal recreational waters have a risk of contamination from a variety of sources including, wildlife and pet feces, storm water runoff, sewer line breaks and overflows, failing septic systems, dirty diapers, waste discharge from boats, swimmers and anglers, and animal feeding operations.

Minnesotas Lake Superior shoreline has almost 80% public beaches or recreational water access points.

Read more here:

Monitoring Begins on the Beaches of Lake Superior