Oceans Reports

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Executive Summary

For the fifth consecutive year, we were able to determine not only the number of closings and advisories, but also the number of times that each beach violated current public health standards. The percent of beach monitoring samples exceeding national health standards remained steady at 7% in 2009, equal to the level in 2008 and 2007 and down from 9% in 2006. More frequent monitoring plus 17% fewer preemptive rainfall closing and advisory days due to drier weather in some parts of the country translated into a better beach season last year for swimmers in many coastal communities. But relying on dry weather to keep contaminated runoff from polluting beachwater is not a long-term public health protection strategy. When the rains return, so do the beach closings and advisories. For example, in the Delmarva Peninsula near Washington, D.C., wetter-than-average conditions contributed to nearly three times as many closing/advisory days in 2009 as in 2008. During 2009, stormwater runoff was identified as a source of more than 80% of the closing/advisory days for which a source was identified. This indicates that there are sources of human or animal wastes that are not being adequately addressed and that are getting washed into the ocean when it rains.