fQ\ EPA's BEACH Report:
Vg*^* Georgia 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 Georgia for the 2007 swimming
season.
Figure 1. Georgia coastal counties.
Chatham
Liberty
Mcintosh
Glynn
Camden
Table 1. Breakdown of monitored and
unmonitored coastal beaches by
county for 2007.
County
Total
Beaches
Monitored
Not
Monitored
CAMDEN
2
0
2
CHATHAM
13
9
4
GLYNN
19
16
3
LIBERTY
1
0
1
MCINTOSH
6
2
4
TOTALS
41
27
14

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2007 Summary Results
How many notification actions were reported
and how long were they?
Georgia'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 37 percent of Georgia'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 Georgia's 2007 swimming season, actions were
reported about 2 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?
Sources of pollution impacting Georgia's monitored
beaches were not identified in 2007 (Figure 4).
Figure 2: Beach notification actions by duration.
12 -1 11
~	10
iL
1 - 2 Days 3 - 7 Days 8 - 30 Days > 30 Days
Duration of Actions (days)
Figure 3:
Table 2. Beach notification actions, 2005-2007.
For More Information
For general information about beaches:
www.epa.gov/beaches/
For information about beaches in Georgia:
http://GaHealthyBeaches.org
2005	2006	2007
Number of monitored	0~,	0~,	0~,
beaches
Number of beaches
affected by notification 17	11	14
actions
Percentage of beaches
affected by notification 63%	41%	52%
actions
Percentage of beach
days affected by	10%	3%	2%
notification actions
Figure 4: Percent of monitored beaches potentially impacted by pollution sources (27 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
Percent of beaches
1 0 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1 00
Note: a single beach may
have multiple sources.
100
Beach days
with no action
8,757
(97.8%)
Beach days with
and without
notification
actions.
Beach days
with an action:
193
(2.2%)

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