Last summer I lived just a mile from a beach -- a real beach, with an ocean and everything. Having grown up several hundred miles from the Atlantic in a town where the only "beach" was a long patch of trucked-in sand in front of a small pond, living so close to the ocean was quite a novelty. Beach culture was an entirely new thing to me, so I did what any real geek would do. I did research.
Granted, some of my research was to investigate the best beach reading and most sensible beach mats. And boy do I wish I'd had EWG's Sunscreen Database to go by (my shoulders hurt just thinking about that painful burn). But in my travels across the sandy terrain of beach culture online, I never encountered any information about beaches being declared unsafe for swimming. Now I know why. More on that later.
The National Resources Defense Council's 17th annual report on beach water quality reveals that instances in which beaches were declared unsafe for swimming reached an all-time high last summer, with more than 25,000 instances in which beaches were closed or health advisories issued. The NRDC report says that aging and poorly designed sewage and water-treatment systems are largely to blame:
“Vacations are being ruined. Families can’t use the beaches in their own communities because they are polluted. Kids are getting sick – all because of sewage and contaminated runoff from outdated, under-funded treatment systems.”
Ah, sewage in the water, our old foe. It's not just a problem for oceans, either, as Flushie will happily inform you. Act for Healthy Rivers has been campaigning for legislation to require public notification of sewer spills and overflow. This is how the NRDC characterizes the risks of sewage overflow:
"Untreated sewage carries a dangerous cargo of infectious bacteria, viruses, parasites and toxic chemicals. When it ends up in our recreational and drinking water, in groundwater and in the basements of our homes, it takes a severe toll on human health and the environment"
A map on the NRDC's new interactive Your Oceans website allows users to view 2006 water testing and advisory rates for 100 of the most popular beaches in the country. Want to know why I never heard anything about beach closings? Water at Herring Cove, tested weekly during the summer of 2006, didn't violate health standards on a single occasion. I guess my first beach-living experience was a lucky one.