^
»
\
Ul
O
EPA's BEACH Report:
2007 Swimming Season
May 2008
EPA823-F-08-006
Introduction
To further its commitment to reducing the risk of exposure to disease-causing bacteria
at recreational beaches, EPA is posting its latest data about beach closings and advisories
for the 2007 swimming season. Congress passed the BEACH Act of 2000 (BEACH Act),
requiring that coastal and Great Lakes states and territories report to EPA on beach
monitoring and notification data for their coastal recreation waters. To help protect the
public, the BEACH Act also requires EPA to maintain an electronic monitoring and
notification database of that data.
The BEACH Act defines coastal recreation waters as the Great Lakes and coastal waters
(including coastal estuaries) that states, territories, and authorized tribes officially
recognize or designate for swimming, bathing, surfing, or similar activities in the water.
Figure 1. Coastal states with 2007 monitored beach data.
Total
= 3,602 Beaches
Coastal states with monitored beach data
Non-coastal states
Coastal state with no monitored beach
data submitted
MR
(N.Mariana Islands)
-73
-------
Results
When monitoring of water at swimming beaches
shows that levels of certain indicator bacteria
exceed standards, states or local agencies notify
the public of potential health risks. These beach
notification actions are usually either a beach
advisory, warning people of possible risks of
swimming, or closing a beach for public swim-
ming. The data reported in this section consist
primarily of actions issued as a result of local
monitoring and localized precautionary adviso-
ries. Certain preemptive advisories that apply to
large areas are not included in this presentation.
How many beaches had notification actions?
For the 2007 swimming season, all thirty coastal
states and four of five territories reported
notification actions to EPA. In 2007, of the
3,602 coastal beaches that were monitored,
1,167 (32 percent) had at least one advisory or
closing during the 2007 season (Figure 2). This
is the same percentage as reported in the 2006
swimming season.
How many notification actions were reported
and how long were they?
Most (94 percent) beach notification actions
reported during the 2007 swimming season
were a week or less (Figure 3). Of the 6,274
notification actions reported, 50 percent (3,146
actions) were only one or two days long. This
represents an improvement over 2006 when only
47 percent of the actions were just one or two
days long.
What percentage of days were beaches
under a notification action?
EPA calculates beach-days to get a better sense of
the extent of beach notification action information.
We do this by adding up the number of days all
beaches are open (based on the length of the local
beach season) and multiplying by the number of
beaches. For 2007, EPA determined there were a
total of 663,164 beach-days associated with the
swimming seasons of 3,602 monitored beaches.
Notification actions were reported on 31,031 days
(Figure 4), meaning that beaches were under an
advisory or closed about 5 percent of the time,
similar to the previous two years.
Figure 2: No. of beaches with notification actions
from 2005 to 2007.
1,201
1,167
2007
Figure 3: Duration of beach notification actions
from 2005 to 2007.
1 - 2 Days 3-7 Days 8 - 30 Days > 30 Days
Duration of Actions (days)
Figure 4: Percentage of beach days under
notification actions from 2005 to 2007.
Days with
an action
)^
Days with
an action
(5%)
Days with
no actions
(96%)
Days with
an action
(5%)
Days with
no actions
(95%)
2005
2006
2007
-------
State Reporting Data
Data trends over the longer term are difficult to establish due to the new reporting
requirements that began in 2003. The data from 2003 to 2007 cannot easily be compared
to data gathered from 1997 to 2002. From 1997-2002 beach monitoring data was
collected and submitted to EPA on a voluntary basis and included coastal, Great Lakes,
and some inland waters. Beginning with the 2003 season, states are required to submit
data to EPA under the BEACH Act for beaches which are in coastal and Great Lakes
waters (Table 1). EPA is working to complete the data sets.
Table 1. Data collected on beaches, advisories, and closings.
Voluntary Survey
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Number of monitored
beaches
1,021 1,403 1,891 2,354 2,445 2,823
Required Reporting
2003 2004
1,857* 3,574**
2005
4,067
2006
3,771
2007
3,602***
Number of beaches
affected by advisories 230 353 459 633 672 709 395* 942** 1,109 1,201 1,167***
or closings
Percentage of beaches
affected by advisories 23 25 24 27 27 25 21* 26** 27 32 32***
or closings
Percentage of beach
days affected by N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 4%** 4% 5% 5%***
advisories or closings
incomplete data from 11 states.
**lncomplete data from 4 territories.
***lncomplete data from the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Uniform Water Quality Standards
The BEACH Act of 2000 required coastal states and states bordering the Great Lakes to
adopt EPA's most current recommended bacteria criteria to better protect beach bathers
from harmful pathogens. On November 8, 2004, EPA finalized more protective bacteria
standards for E. coll and enterococci for coastal and Great Lakes recreational waters for
those states that had not yet complied with the BEACH Act of 2000. Twenty-one states
and territories were affected by this rule; the other 14 had standards in place that were
as protective of human health as EPA's most current bacteria criteria.
Funding to State Programs
For the past eight years, EPA has made available nearly $71 million in grants to 35
coastal and Great Lakes states and territories. The funds are designed to help improve
water monitoring and public information programs to alert beachgoers about the health
of their beaches.
Beach water monitoring helps to ensure that the public receives information on how
to protect their health when visiting beaches; results are used to issue warnings and
closures if bacteria levels are at unsafe levels and to help identify actions needed to
reduce pollution.
-------
Great Lakes Beach Sanitary Survey Tool
The Great Lakes Beach Sanitary Survey Tool is now available. The Tool helps beach managers
in the Great Lakes identify sources of bacterial contamination at their beaches so that these
sources can be corrected or cleaned up, and so that beach closing days can be reduced or
eliminated. EPA developed a draft Beach Sanitary Survey Tool in 2006, and in the summer
of 2007, the Beach Sanitary Survey Tool was tested at 61 beaches in the Great Lakes. The
state and local governments testing the tool provided comments to EPA, who incorporated
comments from the field testing into the Tool. Although the Beach Sanitary Survey Tool was
developed for the Great Lakes, the concept is applicable in any beach environment (marine
water, inland water).
The Great Lakes Beach Sanitary Survey Tool includes two types of beach sanitary
surveys—the Routine On-site Sanitary Survey and the Annual Sanitary Survey—to assist
with short- and long-term beach assessments, respectively. The Routine On-site Sanitary
Survey is performed at the same time that water quality samples are taken, and documents
the methods used to collect data during the Routine On-site Sanitary Survey. The Annual
Sanitary Survey records information about factors in the surrounding watershed that
might affect water quality at the beach. Both surveys include forms to help document the
information collected during the survey, and thus create for the first time a consistent and
comparable data structure to diagnose the sources of fecal contamination that can impair
public health protection at beaches.
You can find the Tool on EPA's web site, at www.epa.gov/waterscience/beaches/
sanitarysurvey/
EPA's Efforts to Develop New or Revised Water Quality
Criteria for Recreational Waters
EPA is continuing its work to develop new or revised water quality criteria for recreational
waters. In August 2007, EPA published the Critical Path Science Plan that describes the high
priority research and science that EPA intends to conduct between 2007 and the end of 2010
to establish the scientific foundation for the development of new or revised recreational
water quality criteria recommendations. The CPSP also describes studies for which EPA
is providing financial and/or technical support. The specific near-term critical research
and science needs described in the Science Plan were informed by the individual input of
the 43 international and U.S. experts who attended a scientific workshop held by EPA in
March 2007 at the Airlie Center in Warrenton, Virginia. The Report of the Experts Scientific
Workshop on Critical Research Needs for the Development of New or Revised Recreational
Water Quality Criteria is available online at at www.epa.gov/waterscience.
Planned Improvements
EPA continues to improve monitoring and notification for the Beach Program. EPA is compil-
ing improved monitoring practices and examining the use of rapid test methods in epidemi-
ology studies to determine how these methods could be best integrated into the Program.
For More Information
For general information about beaches visit:
http://www.epa.gov/beaches/
For information about a specific beach:
http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/beacon/
------- |