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EPA's BEACH Report:
2006 Swimming Season
May 2007
EPA823-R-07-005
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 2006 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 2006 monitored beach data.
Total = 3,771 Beaches
Coastal states with monitored beach data
Non-coastal states
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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 2006 swimming season, all thirty coastal
states and all five territories reported notification
actions to EPA. Of the 3,771 coastal beaches that
were monitored in 2006,1,201 (32 percent) had
at least one advisory or closing during the 2006
season (Figure 2). The increase from 27 percent
of the beaches reporting notification actions in
2005 is partly a result of beach consolidation
by several states. In re-evaluating their beach
programs, several states combined small beaches
into larger beaches, reducing the total number of
beaches monitored, but maintaining the scope of
their programs.
How many notification actions were reported
and how long were they?
The majority of beach notification actions
reported during the 2006 swimming season were
of relatively short duration (Figure 3). Of the
6,786 notification actions reported, 47 percent
(3,186 actions) were only one or two days long.
This represents an improvement over 2005 when
only 43 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 multiplying the number of beaches
by the number of days in the swimming season.
For 2006, EPA determined there were a total of
709,168 beach-days associated with the swimming
seasons of 3,771 monitored beaches. Notification
actions were reported on 34,358 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 2004 to 2006.
1,201
1,109
2006
Figure 3: Duration of beach notification actions
from 2004 to 2006.
o
o
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 2004 to 2006.
Days with
an action
(4%)
Days with
an action
(4%)
Days with
no actions
(96%)
2004
Days with
an action
(5%)
2005
Days with
no actions
(95%)
2006
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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 2006 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
Number of monitored
beaches
1997
1,021
1998
1,403
1999
1,891
2000
2,354
2001
2,445
2002
2,823
Required Reporting
2003
1,857*
2004
3,574**
2005
4,067
2006
3,771
Number of beaches
affected by advisories or
closings
230
353
459
633
672
709
395* 942** 1,109 1,201
Percentage of beaches
affected by advisories or
closings
23
25
24
27
27
25
21* 26*
incomplete data from 11 states.
**lncomplete data from 4 territories.
27
32
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. coli 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 seven years, EPA has made available nearly $62 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.
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Report to Congress: Implementing the BEACH Act
of 2000
In October 2006, EPA published its first Report to Congress detailing the Agency's
efforts to implement the BEACH Act of 2000. The Report documents the significant
progress that EPA and its federal, state, and local partners have made in implementing
the BEACH Act. The Report to Congress is available on EPA's website, at http://www.
epa.gov/waterscience/beaches/report/.
EPA's Efforts to Develop New or Revised Water Quality
Criteria for Recreational Waters
EPA is working to develop new or revised water quality criteria for recreational waters.
In March 2007, EPA held an Experts' Scientific Workshop on Critical Research Needs for
Developing New or Revised Recreational Water Quality Criteria. EPA brought together
42 U.S. experts from EPA, other federal agencies, state and local governments, academia,
industry, and environmental groups, along with several prominent international experts.
They were asked to provide their individual expert input on the state of the science
and the critical path research and science needs for developing new or revised 304(a)
recreational water quality criteria in the near term (e.g., 5 years). An Experts' Report will
be available in Summer 2007 detailing their recommendations for critical path research.
The final report will be available on the EPA website at www.epa.gov/waterscience.
Planned Improvements
EPA is working proactively to improve the delivery of its beach advisory information to
the public. BEACON (BEach Advisory and Closing Online Notification system) is part
of EPA's overall "eBeaches" effort to provide the public with monitoring and notification
information by electronic means. EPA is working to improve eBeaches to enable faster,
easier, and more secure transmittal of information about beach water quality, including
improved public access to information about beach conditions and the health risks
associated with swimming in waters that exceed EPA's recommended criteria. EPA's goal
is to improve the beach mapping functions by incorporating beach lengths.
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/
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