&EFA United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA's BEACH Report: Delaware 2011 Swimming Season August 2012 EPA820-F-12-018 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 Delaware for the 2011 swimming season. 2011 Swimming Season Monitoring and Notification Actions Delaware monitored 20 coastal beaches in Sussex County 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, Delaware 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 none of the 20 coastal beaches that Delaware monitored had notification actions. This is the lowest percentage in the past four years (Figure 2). Figure 1. Delaware coastal counties. Table 1. Number of monitored and unmonitored coastal beaches by county for 2011. • County SUSSEX TOTALS Total Beaches 20 20 Monitored 20 20 Not Monitored 0 0 ------- 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 How many notification actions were issued and how long did they last? Delaware issued no notification actions during the 2011 swimming season. Typically Delaware lifts an action when follow-up monitoring indicates that water quality complies with applicable standards. 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 that 2,982 beach days were associated with the 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 • To the Beach \ • To the Beach) MTo the Beach) 100.0% 98.3% 96.4% 99.6% 99.6% swimming seasons of the 20 monitored Delaware beaches. Delaware reported notification actions on 0 days, meaning that beaches were open and safe for swimming 100 percent of the time. This improves on the trend of consistently high percentages of open beach days at state beaches (Figure 4). For More Information For information about the Delaware beach program contact: Debbie Lee Rouse Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Tel: 302-739-9939 e-mail: debbie.rouse@state.de.us For general information about beaches visit: http://water.epa.goy/type/oceb/beaches/. For information about a specific beach visit: http://watersgeo.epa.gov/beacon2/. ------- |