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EPA 823-F-05-006
  July 2005
              EPA's BEACH  Program:  2004
              Swimming  Season  Update
              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
              2004 swimming season.  To help protect the public at beaches, 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. 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 2004 monitored beach data.
                                      Total = 3,574 Beaches
                ) JGU
                           HI
                                          Coastal states with monitored beach data

                                          Coastal states with monitored beach data pending

                                          Coastal states with no data submitted

                                          Non-coastal states
                                                                     MR
                                                                     (N.Mariana Islands)

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Advisories and Closings
When monitoring of water at swimming
beaches shows that levels of certain bacteria
exceed standards, states or local agencies
notify the public of potential health risks.
This public notification may be either a beach
advisory, warning people of possible risks of
swimming, or closing a beach to the public.

For the 2004 swimming season, 28 of 30
coastal states and one of five territories
reported public notification actions to EPA.
At this time, Pennsylvania's 2004 data from
Erie County are being finalized, and Alaska's
monitoring program is pending. The four
territories American Samoa, Guam, N.
Mariana Islands, and Virgin Islands are in the
process of submitting 2004 data.

The data for the 2004 swimming season show
that only four percent of beach days were
lost due to advisory or closures triggered by
monitoring. Even then, most actions were of
relatively short duration (see Figure 2). Of the
3,574 beaches that were monitored in 2004,
942 or 26 percent had a least one advisory or
closing during the 2004 season (Figure 3). A
total of 4,906 beach notification actions were
reported by the 28 states and Puerto Rico for
the 2004 swimming season.

EPA calculates beach days to get a better
sense of the extent of beach advisory
and closure information. We do this by
multiplying the number of beaches by the
number of days in the swimming season. For
the 2004 swimming season, EPA determined
there were a total of 584,150 beach days for
all of the 3,574 monitored beaches. Of those,
actions were reported on 21,061 days (Figure
4), meaning that beaches were closed only
about 4% of the time.

The data include only advisories issued as a
result of local monitoring. They do not include
advisories issued by state or local authorities
as a result of local conditions or events. For
instance, California automatically issues an
advisory for 24 hours after a rainfall event
without specific monitoring data. Hawaii
issued an island-wide advisory in March
2004 based on heavy rainfall that could have
elevated pathogen levels.
Figure 2: Beach notification actions by duration.
   3000  -

   2500  -

(0  2000  -
c
o
'•5   1500  -

o   1000  -
d
Z   500  -

      0
             2704
Total
= 4,906 Actions
                         1773

                                     370
                                                 59
           1-2 Days      3-7 Days     8-30 Days     > 30 Days

                  Duration of Actions
Figure 3: Beach notification actions in 2004.
       Monitored
      beaches with
        actions
         (26%)
                Monitored
                beaches
              without actions
                 (74%)
                            Total = 3,574 Beaches
Figure 4: Beach days by notification actions.
         Beach days
        with an action
            (4%)
            Beach days
           with no action
              (96%
Total
= 584,1 50 Days

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State Reporting Data

Data trends are difficult to establish due to the new reporting requirements that began in 2003.
The 2003 and 2004 data 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).

   Table  1.  Data collected on beaches, advisories, and closings.

                                               Vo.un.ary Survey         _

                                   1997   1998    1999   2000   2001    2002    2003   2004
    Number of beaches               1,021   1,403    1,891   2,354  2,445   2,823    1,857*   3,574
    Number of beaches affected by     ?o0    oco    4irq    Boo   B7?     70q
    advisories or closings             ^    3b3    4b9    M3   ^'l     /09
    Percentage of beaches affected
    by advisories or closings           ^     ^     ^     *'     *'     ^

    *lncomplete data from 11 states; EPA working to complete data set.
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 five years, EPA has provided nearly $42 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.

The grants are designed to support water monitoring, which helps to ensure that the public
receives information on how to protect their health when visiting beaches. Beach water
monitoring 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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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 error-free transmittal of
information about beach water quality. This includes improved public access to information about
beach conditions  and the health risks associated with swimming in polluted water. EPA's goal is to
make the 2005  swimming season data available sooner and to improve the beach mapping functions
by incorporating beach lengths. EPA consults regularly with its state counterparts and provides
technical assistance to make these improvements.


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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