£% United States Environmental Protectio \r hI Agency EPA's Beach Report: 2022 Swimming Season Introduction This report summarizes information that states, territories, and tribes with coastal and Great Lakes beaches submitted to EPA on beach closings and advisories for the 2022 swimming season. The information in this report covers January 1 through December 31, 2022, and includes data submitted to EPA as of June 22, 2023. Two territories and two states1 had not submitted complete data sets when this report was created; the jurisdictions without complete data comprise about five percent of the universe of U.S. beaches. A version of this report incorporating any updated data since this report was released can be generated at https://ofmpub.epa. gov/apex/beacon2/f?p=BEACON2:DNR. The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act of 2000 authorizes EPA to provide grants to eligible states, territories, and tribes to monitor their coastal recreational waters for bacteria that indicate the possible presence of disease-causing pathogens and to notify the public when there is a potential risk to public health. EPA awarded approximately $9.6 million in grants in 2021 for the 2022 season; more information can be found at https://www.epa.gov/beach-tech/beach-grants. The BEACH Act requires grant recipients to report their monitoring and notifications data for coastal recreational waters to EPA and EPA to maintain an electronic database of that data, accessible to the public. This report is based on that data. Information on grouped or individual jurisdictions or beaches can be found at https://watersgeo.epa.gov/BEACON2/about.html. 2022 Swimming Season Results States, territories, and tribes take water samples to monitor the water at swimming beaches to see if levels of specific indicator bacteria (for example, enterococci) exceed the water quality standards or beach advisory thresholds that apply to that water. "Program beaches" have, at minimum, a program to notify the public if swimming in the coastal water is unsafe, and most also have a program to routinely monitor the water quality. There are 6,397 coastal and Great Lakes beaches in the United States, and 5,092 (80%) of those are "program beaches." In 2022, 70 percent of the program beaches were monitored for bacteria. Chart 1 shows the total number of program beaches and the number of beaches that were monitored in each state, territory, and tribe in 2022. When monitoring results show exceedances for bacteria, states, territories, and tribes issue either a beach advisory that warns people of possible risks of swimming or a beach closing that closes the beach to public swimming. The states and local agencies that do not routinely 1 Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, Indiana, and Texas Office of Water EPA 823-R23-005 June 2023 1 ------- monitor water quality at program beaches use models or policies (for example, issue an advisory after a certain amount of rainfall) as a basis for issuing notification actions at beaches. The advisories or closings typically stay in effect until monitoring shows that levels of bacteria comply with applicable water quality standards or beach advisory thresholds. Tribes: Grand Portage Band 12 12 Makah Tribe 11 5 Bad River Band 15 15 Swinomish Tribe 6 6 Commonwealth of American Guam Puerto Rico U.S. Virgin Northern Marianas Samoa 32 31 35 35 Islands 83 83 48 48 45 45 Chart 1: Number of total state/territory/tribe and monitored coastal and Great Lake program beaches by Cs HI 408 1 72 573 571 68 68 73 73 403 215 24 24 MD 62 62 5,092 Program Beaches 3,547 Monitored Beaches Chart 2: Percent of nation's program beaches with one or more notification actions How many beaches had notification actions? In 2022, 29 percent of the nation's program beaches (1,468 out of 5,092) had at least one notification action, which is either an advisory or a closing. Chart 2 shows the percent of program beaches with one or more advisories or closings in years 2018 through 2022. What are the possible pollution sources causing notification actions? Beach advisories and closings can result from a variety of pollution sources: stormwater runoff after rainfall; pet and wildlife waste; waste from boats; leaking septic systems; malfunctions at wastewater treatment plants or broken sewer lines; overflows from sewer systems; or harmful aigal blooms. One way EPA is helping to minimize the risk to beachgoers is by helping communities improve sewage treatment plants and reduce adverse impacts from rainfall as much as possible by providing water infrastructure investment loans. 2 ------- States, territories, and tribes reported the possible sources of pollution shown in Chart 3 that resulted in beach advisories or closings or were identified in beach surveys at program beaches in 2022. Stormwater runoff was the known source reported most often. Almost half (45%) of the sources were reported as unknown. Chart 3: Reported possible sources of pollution in 2022 Unknown Stormwater Runoff 21% (1191) To Be Reported/Determined 10% (562) Wildlife 6% (322) Other 5% (279) Dry-weather Runoff 5% (260) Boat Discharge ¦ 2% (135) Publicly Owned Treatment Works ¦ 2% (93) Combined Sewer Overflow I 1% (75) Sanitary Sewer Overflow I 1% (71) Septic System Leakage I 1 % (69) Sewer Line Leakage I 1% (55) Agricultural Runoff I 1 % (31) Algae I 0% (17) (Note: The percentages shown on the chart do not total 100 because they are rounded to the nearest whole number. The numbers in parentheses are the reported number of sources associated with advisories and closings.) How many notification actions were Chart 4: Duration of beach notification actions issued and how long did they last? in 2022 Among the 1,468 program beaches with notification actions, states, territories, and tribes issued 8,788 advisories or closings during the 2022 swimming season. An advisory or closing is typically removed when follow-up water quality monitoring shows that bacteria levels comply with applicable water quality standards or beach advisory thresholds. For 87 percent of the notification actions in 2022, bacteria levels in coastal recreational waters no longer exceeded applicable water quality standards or beach advisory thresholds, and beaches were deemed safe for swimming within a week (Chart 4). In 2022, 15 percent of the notification actions lasted only one day, and 12 percent ended between one and two days. 3 ------- What percentage of days were beaches open and safe for swimming? Program beaches on U.S. coasts and along the Great Lakes were open and safe for swimming 92 percent of the time in 2022. Chart 5 shows the percentage of beach days that the nation's program beaches were open and without any advisories in years 2018 through 2022. EPA calculates the total available beach days and the number of beach days with advisories or closings to better track trends over time. To calculate total available beach days, EPA adds the length of the beach season (in days) for every program beach in each state, territory, and tribe. For 2022, EPA determined that 634,029 beach days were associated with the swimming season of the 5,092 beaches with monitoring and/or notification programs. Notification actions were reported on 52,021 days out of those 634,029 beach days (8%). Where Can I Find More Information? To find out more about what you can do to help protect beaches, visit https://www.epa.gov/beaches/act-beach. To find out more about what affects beach health, visit https://www.epa.gov/beaches/learn- what-affects-beach-health. For general information about beaches, visit https://www.epa.gov/beaches. For current information about a specific beach, visit https://www.epa.gov/beaches/state- territorial-tribal-and-epa-beach-program-contacts. For beach information that states, territories, and tribes have reported to EPA, visit http://watersgeo.epa.gov/beacon2. Chart 5: Percent of days the nation's program beaches were open and safe for swimming 4 ------- |