Raw sewage has been spotted floating in Lake Ontario following a recent downpour of rain, an occurrence that a non-profit group that monitors water quality in the city says is becoming far too common.

On Thursday morning officials with the organization Swim Drink Fish were out along Toronto’s waterfront testing the bacteria levels just off the heavily-trafficked boardwalk south of Queen’s Quay.

The group says that while the waters of Lake Ontario are relatively clean, they say that they are increasingly observing high levels of pollution following rain storms.

Those elevated levels of pollution usually last for up to 48 hours, they say.

“We have been out here for two years every Tuesday and Thursday and we post our results so the public can see what is going on,” Swim Drink Fish President Mark Mattson told CP24. “After rain storms what we are finding is that sewage is coming out from the combined sewage overflows and into the harbour here. Not only is that found through our sampling for bacteria and E. coli but also you can just see it. Floating on the surface are condoms and tampon applicators and needles. It is just really disgusting down here.”

Mattson said that the city does a “great job” of testing the bacteria levels at designated beaches each and every day during the summer season but does not do anything to monitor the bacteria levels along the waterfront downtown.

He said that with more and more people embracing the waterfront as a destination, the city should be doing more to keep it clean.

“It is the same with almost all of our old cities. For whatever reason our waterfronts were abandoned basically. Now people are embracing them and we are starting to discover that every time it rains – and climate change is leading to bigger storms – we are getting all the sewage discharged into our waters,” he said.

Mattson said that while bacteria levels are generally within acceptable ranges in the inner harbor, he said that they probably exceed those ranges 30 to 40 per cent of the time, largely as a result of sewage overflow from rain storms.

He said that some locations like Bathurst Quay are also particularly problematic.

Last year, Swim Drink Fish’s testing revealed that the bacteria levels in Bathurst Quay did not meet provincial standards about 85 per cent of the time.

“We have to go back and fix the infrastructure so we are not consistently polluting the water,” he said.