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EPA's BEACH Report:
Mississippi 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 Mississippi for the 2007 swimming
season.
Figure 1. Mississippi coastal counties.
Table 1. Breakdown of monitored and
unmonitored coastal beaches by
county for 2007.
County
Total
Beaches
Monitored
Not
Monitored
HANCOCK
3
3
0
HARRISON
11
11
0
JACKSON
6
6
0
TOTALS
20
20
0
Hancock
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2007 Summary Results
How many notification actions were reported
and how long were they?
Mississippi'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 9 monitored beaches
had at least one advisory issued during the 2007
swimming season. About 10 percent of Mississippi's
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 Mississippi's 2007 swimming season, actions
were reported about 5 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?
Figure 4 displays the percentage of Mississippi's
monitored beaches potentially impacted by various
pollution sources. In 2007, 80 percent of the beaches
had not been investigated.
For More Information
For general information about beaches:
www.epa.gov/beaches/
For information about beaches in Mississippi:
www.usm.edu/gcrl/msbeach/index.cgi
Figure 2: Beach notification actions by duration.

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1 - 2 Days 3-7 Days 8-30 Days > 30 Days
Duration of Actions (days)
Figure 3: Beach days with
and without
notification
actions.
Beach days
with an action:
195
(5%)
Beach days
with no action
3,465
(95%)
Table 2. Beach notification actions, 2005-2007.

2005
2006
2007
Number of monitored
beaches
21
21
20
Number of beaches
affected by notification
actions
7
6
9
Percentage of beaches
affected by notification
actions
33%
29%
45%
Percentage of beach days
affected by notification
actions
<1%
59%
5%
Figure 4: Percent of monitored beaches potentially impacted by pollution sources (20 beaches).
Percent of beaches
0 1 0 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1 00
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
	
80

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
10
20



Note: a single beach may
have multiple sources.






0
0
0

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