^6Dsrx i Q ' EPA's BEACH Report: Texas 2010 Swimming Season May 2011 Introduction The BEACH Act of 2000 requires 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 Texas for the 2010 swimming season. The Texas Beach Watch Program continues to collect water samples at 167 stations along the Texas coast in Aransas, Brazoria, Cameron, Galveston, Jefferson, Kleberg, Matagorda, Nueces and San Patricio counties. The Texas General Land Office contracts with universities, local governments and commercial laboratories to collect the samples and test them for the presence of enterococcus bacteria. Samples are collected and tested weekly from May through September (the peak beach season) and every other week from October through April. In addition, weekly samples are collected at Gulf of Mexico beaches during March to coincide with spring break and the increased number of tourists visiting the Texas coast. Texas' website, www.TexasBeachWatch.com. provides current water quality advisories and water quality conditions that are available through email and RSS subscriptions as well. Texas also posts public notification signage at its beaches in English and Spanish to indicate whether contact with beach water is recommended based on the most recent water testing. The distribution of Texas Beach Watch brochures, in English and Spanish, and promotional items at various public events continues to be instrumental in promoting awareness of the Texas Beach Watch website and the water quality of our Texas beaches. To further promote traffic to the website, Texas initiated a Beach Conditions Pilot Project in Nueces County in 2010 that reports current beach conditions at five Gulf of Mexico beaches on a daily basis or as conditions change. Figure 1. Texas coastal counties. Harris Brazoria Jefferson veston Refugio San Patricio Nueces Matag alhoun ransas Kleberg Willac Cameron Table 1. Breakdown of monitored and unmonitored coastal beaches by county for 2010. County Total Beaches Monitored Not Monitored ARANSAS 9 1 8 BRAZORIA 10 4 6 CALHOUN 18 0 18 CAMERON 12 9 3 CHAMBERS 2 0 2 GALVESTON 36 23 13 HARRIS 8 0 8 JEFFERSON 2 2 0 KLEBERG 7 4 3 MATAGORDA 12 3 9 NUECES 43 18 25 REFUGIO 1 0 1 SAN PATRICIO 6 1 5 WILLACY 3 0 3 TOTALS 169 65 104 ------- o 90 2 3-7 8-30 > 30 Duration of Actions (Days) Table 2. Beach notification actions, 2008-2010. 2010 Summary Results Figure 2: Beach notification actions by duration. 149 How many notification actions were reported and how long were they? When water quality standards are exceeded at a particular beach, Texas issues a beach advisory that warns people to avoid contact with the water. A total of 56 monitored beaches had at least one advisory issued during the 2010 swimming season. About 88 percent of Texas' 207 notification actions lasted one day. Figure -LL. 9 2 presents a full breakdown of notification action durations. What percentage of days were beaches under a notification action? Figure 3: For Texas' 2010 swimming season, actions were reported about one and one-half percent of the time (Figure 3). How do 2010 results compare to previous years? Table 2 compares 2010 notification action data with monitored beach data from previous years. What pollution sources possibly affect investigated monitored beaches? In 2010, no sources of pollution were found at investigated monitored beaches. For More Information For general information about beaches: www.epa.gov/beaches/ For more information about water quality conditions go to: www.TexasBeachWatch.com. Additional information regarding the Texas Beach Watch Program is available by contacting the Beach Watch Coordinator at beachwatch@glo.state.tx.us. or by calling the Texas General Land Office at 1-(800)998-4GLO Figure 4: Percent of investigated monitored beaches affected by possible pollution sources (65 beaches). Percent of beaches 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 100 Investigated / no sources found Non-storm related runoff o Storm-related runoff o Agricultural runoff o Boat discharge o Cone, animal feeding operation o Combined sewer overflow o Sanitary sewer overflow o Publicly-owned treatment works o Sewer line leak or break o Septic system leakage o Wildlife o Other (identified) source(s) o Unidentified source(s) o 2008 2009 2010 Number of monitored beaches 65 65 65 Number of beaches affected by notification actions 48 50 56 Percentage of beaches affected by notification actions 74% 77% 86% Percentage of beach days affected by notification actions 2% 1% 1.5% Note: A single beach may have multiple sources. Beach days with no action — 23,111 (98.5%) Beach days with and without notification actions. Beach days with an action: 354 (1.5%) ------- |