&EFA United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA's BEACH Report: Indiana 2011 Swimming Season July 2012 EPA 820-F-l2-011 Introduction The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act of 2000 authorizes EPA to provide grants to coastal and Great Lakes states, territories, and eligible tribes to monitor their coastal beaches for bacteria that indicate the possible presence of disease-causing pathogens and to notify the public when there is a potential risk to public health. The BEACH Act requires that recipients of those grants report their coastal beach monitoring and notification data to EPA. This fact sheet highlights the data submitted to EPA by the State of Indiana for the 2011 swimming season. 2011 Swimming Season Monitoring and Notification Actions Indiana monitored 24 coastal beaches in three counties during the 2011 swimming season (Figure 1 and Table 1). When monitoring results at swimming beaches show that levels of specific indicator bacteria in the water exceed applicable water quality standards, Indiana officials issue a beach advisory, warning people of possible risks of swimming or close the beach to public swimming until further monitoring finds that water quality complies with applicable standards. How many beaches had notification actions? In 2011 all of the 24 monitored coastal beaches that Indiana monitored had at least one notification action. This is the same as in most previous years (Figure 2). Figure 1. Indiana coastal counties. County LA PORTE LAKE PORTER TOTALS Total Beaches 8 10 6 24 Monitored 8 10 6 24 Not Monitored 0 0 0 0 Table 1. Number of monitored and unmonitored coastal beaches by county for 2011. ------- Figure 2: Percent of beaches with one or more notification actions Figure 4: Percent of beach days open and safe for swimming Figure 3: Duration of beach notification actions in 2011 8-30 days 1% 1-2 days 76% How many notification actions were issued and how long did they last? Indiana issued 196 notification actions during the 2011 swimming season. Typically Indiana lifts an action when follow-up monitoring indicates that water quality complies with applicable standards. For the majority of actions (76 percent) water quality returned to normal and beaches were deemed safe for swimming within one or two days (Figure 3). Only rarely (1 percent) did notification actions last more than a week. What percentage of days were beaches under a notification action? EPA calculates the total available beach days and the number of beach days with notification actions to better track trends over time. Total available beach days are determined by multiplying the length of the beach season by the number of beaches in the state. For 2011 EPA calculated 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 • To the Beach) • To the Beach) MTo the Beach) • To the Beach) • To the Beach) 85.4% 82.5% 85.2% 84.8% 83.0% that 2,506 beach days were associated with the swimming seasons of the 24 monitored Indiana beaches. Indiana reported notification actions on 365 days, meaning that beaches were open and safe for swimming about 85 percent of the time. This percentage is similar to previous years (Figure 4). For More Information For information about the Indiana beach program contact: Michelle Caldwell Indiana Department of Environmental Management Tel: 219-757-0283 e-mail: mcaldwel@idem.in.gov For general information about beaches visit: http://water.epa.gov/type/oceb/beaches/. For information about a specific beach visit: http://watersgeo.epa.gov/beacon2/. ------- |