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EPA's BEACH Report:
Mississippi 2010 Swimming Season
May 2011
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 2010 swimming
season.
Notification actions directly attributable to
the oil spill that resulted from the April 20,
2010 explosion on the BP leasee! Deepwater
Horizon offshore drilling platform are not
included in the summary statistics presented
in this report. A total of 1,955 beach days
at 16 monitored beaches had oil-related
notification actions during the 2010 swimming
season.
Figure 1. Mississippi coastal counties.
Hancock
Table 1. Breakdown of monitored and
unmonitored coastal beaches by
county for 2010.
County
Total
Beaches
Monitored
Not
Monitored
HANCOCK
4
4
0
HARRISON
13
13
0
JACKSON
5
5
0
TOTALS
22
22
0

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2010 Summary Results
How many notification actions were reported
and how long were they?
When water quality standards are exceeded at a
particular beach, Mississippi issues a beach advisory
that warns people to avoid contact with the ocean
water. A total of 10 monitored beaches had at least
one advisory issued during the 2010 swimming
season. Figure 2 presents a full breakdown of
notification action durations.
What percentage of days were beaches under a
notification action?
For Mississippi's 2010 swimming season, actions
were reported about one 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?
Figure 4 displays the percentage of Mississippi's
investigated monitored beaches possibly affected by
various pollution sources.
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.
20 n
= 15
O
o
^10
o
5-
2	3-7 8-30
Duration of Actions (Days)
>30
Figure 3: Beach days with
and without
notification
actions.
Beach days
with an action:
66
(1.4%)
Beach days
with no action
4,620
(98.6%)
Table 2. Beach notification actions, 2008-2010.

2008
2009
2010
Number of monitored
beaches
22
20
22
Number of beaches
affected by notification
actions
15
8
10
Percentage of beaches
affected by notification
actions
68%
40%
46%
Percentage of beach days
affected by notification
actions
5%
2%
1%
Figure 4: Percent of investigated monitored beaches affected by
possible pollution sources (22 beaches).
Percent of beaches
0 1 0 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1 00
Investigated / no sources found	o
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	¦ 5
Publicly-owned treatment works	0
Sewer line leak or break	¦ 5
Septic system leakage	0
Wildlife	0
Other (identified) source(s)	68
Unidentified source(s)	100
Note: A single beach may
have multiple sources.

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