^6Dsrx i Q ' EPA's BEACH Report: Oregon 2007 Swimming Season July 2008 Introduction The BEACH Act of 2000 requires 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 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. This fact sheet summarizes beach monitoring and notification data submitted to EPA by the State of Oregon for the 2007 swimming season. Between May and September each year, the Oregon Beach Monitoring Program (OBMP) helps protect people who play in coastal waters that are designated for swimming, bathing, surfing, and similar water contact activities. During the 2007 swimming season, the OBMP monitored 71 sampling sites at 20 recreational beaches along the Oregon coast. Ocean water is sampled either once a week or every two weeks. The beach program works with other state agencies to collect and test water samples, and when bacteria levels exceed the state standard of 158 enterococci organisms per lOOmL of ocean water sampled a water contact advisory is issued. Oregon uses various methods for notifying the public about water contact advisories, including media releases, phone calls to city and county officials, email notification to local governments and interested stakeholders, statewide advisory hotline, signage at beach access points, posting information on the program Web site, and a Web site link to the Earth911 Web site where advisory information is also posted. The OBMP works with the Oregon Coastal Atlas to share and display beach water quality monitoring data on the Web. The Atlas is a collaborative project of the Oregon Ocean-Coastal Management Program, and is considered one of the Nation's most useful and comprehensive information sources about a State shoreline. To view recent and historic beach sampling data at the Atlas, visit www.coastalatlas.net/learn/ topics/waterquality/beach. Figure 1. Oregon coastal counties. Clatsop Tillamook Lincoln Coos Douglas Table 1. Breakdown of monitored and unmonitored coastal beaches by county for 2007. County Total Beaches Monitored Not Monitored CLATSOP 7 3 4 COOS 3 2 1 CURRY 13 3 10 DOUGLAS 1 0 1 LANE 4 0 4 LINCOLN 18 6 12 TILLAMOOK 13 6 7 TOTALS 59 20 39 ------- 2007 Summary Results How many notification actions were reported and how long were they? Oregon's approach is to issue a beach advisory when water quality standards are exceeded at a particular beach that warns people to avoid contact with the ocean water. A total of 14 monitored beaches had at least one advisory issued during the 2007 swimming season. About 67 percent of Oregon's 30 notification actions lasted two days or less. Figure 2 presents a full breakdown of notification action durations. What percentage of days were beaches under a notification action? For Oregon's 2007 swimming season, actions were reported about 4 percent of the time (Figure 3). How do 2007 results compare to previous years? Table 2 compares 2007 notification action data with monitored beach data from previous years. What pollution sources impact monitored beaches? Potential sources of pollution impacting Oregon's monitored beaches were not investigated in 2007 (Figure 4). For More Information For general information about beaches: www.epa.gov/beaches/ For information on Oregon's monitored beaches and sampling results visit www.healthoregon.org/beach, or contact (971) 673-0431. Figure 2: Beach notification actions by duration. 251 in c 20- o ¦*—1 o 15- < o 10- o z 5 - o- 20 1-2 3-7 8-30 Duration of Actions (days) > 30 Figure 3: Table 2. Beach notification actions, 2005-2007. 2005 2006 2007 Number of monitored beaches 20 20 20 Number of beaches affected by notification actions 11 8 14 Percentage of beaches affected by notification actions 55% 40% 70% Percentage of beach days affected by notification actions 4% 1% 4% Figure 4: Percent of monitored beaches potentially impacted by pollution sources (20 beaches). 0 Pollution sources not investigated Agricultural runoff Boat discharge Cone, animal feeding operation Publicly-owned treatment works Non-storm related runoff Septic system leakage Sewer line leak or break Sanitary/Combined sewer overflow Storm-related runoff Wildlife Other and/or unidentified sources No known pollution sources 10 20 30 Percent of beaches 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 ~100 Note: a single beach may have multiple sources. Beach days with no action 2,338 (95.8%) Beach days with and without notification actions. Beach days with an action: 102 (4.2%) ------- |