South Shore Beach in Bay View is officially open to the public again – 400 feet south of where it once was. The completion of the $8 million reconstruction project, an effort that first began in 2014, will be celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, Sept. 25.

Since 2022, the beach has 27 closures as well as frequent water quality advisories, and it was often ranked one of the worst beaches nationwide, according to Milwaukee County Parks. The primary culprit was high E. coli levels in the water caused by localized runoff, stormwater, sewer overflows and animal waste.

An extensive research project, funded in full by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, started in 2014 in collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Milwaukee County Parks, UW-Milwaukee’

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