NEWS: Coming off Ohio's last-place ranking in 2013, we have 3 predictions for this year's national beaches report.

Last year, a national report ranked Lake Erie beaches last in water quality. Where will they finish this summer? We could find out this week.

Cleveland's lakefront has made a significant step forward since Cleveland Metroparks assumed control of its beaches last year. But challenges to its recreational water quality remain, and that could mean low rankings again when the Natural Resources Defense Council releases its 2014 Testing the Waters beach report.

We'll see what the numbers say when the report is made official, but we can already make three predictions. And we can also put the predictions into perspective.

RADIO: I'm not sure we can use that in a headline.

The phrase "t_rd reduction" might be awkward in a headline, but it's the way yesterday's beach report and our efforts to monitor and improve water quality came up in drive-time talk radio yesterday. Hear for yourself:

WMMS's Alan Cox Show spent a few segments on the topic yesterday afternoon. And while Lake Erie and its water quality are the punchline for easy jokes [insert burning-river humor here], we have reduced many pollution sources affecting our lake in the last 40 years.

Yet we are the first to admit we have a long way to go. There are many factors involved in the bacteria and pollution along the lakefront, and we're tackling them.

BEACHES: Sewer District partners with NRDC in press conference on beach quality

Villa Angela Beach in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by Michael Uva.

Updated 2012 06/27—This morning, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) held a 10:00 press conference at the Great Lakes Science Center to release its annual report on national beaches—including several in Greater Cleveland—and the Sewer District has partnered with them at the release event.

You can follow tweets from the conference on our @wallywaterdrop Twitter stream or using hashtag #2012beach