A new “Testing the Waters” report released by The Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC), this week stresses the dangers of swimming in contaminated beaches as the July 4th weekend is upon the nation. U.S. beaches were closed or under advisory for more than 24,000 days, a 29 percent increase from the previous year.

The world’s oil spills were a large contributor of contamination. According to the report, Louisiana, hit hardest by the oil spill, is the state with the country’s highest rate of contamination at 31% followed by Ohio and Indiana at 21 and 16% respectively.

Louisiana claims just under a third of the 9,474 total national oil related advisories and closures. As of June, four beach segments in Louisiana that had closed due to oil have yet to open.

The presence of human or animal waste made up 70% of the closing and advisory days usually caused from storm water run-off.

The report also listed the top 10 repeat offender beaches that have had persistent contamination problems since 2006. Illinois’ North Point Marina North Beach and Wisconsin’s Eichelman Beach and South Shore Beach are part of the Great Lakes region, an area with the most frequently contaminated beach water in 2010, with 15% of water samples exceeding public health standards.

California had three beaches on the offenders list with Avalon Beach, Cabrillo Beach Station and Doheny State Beach, while Florida’s Keaton Beach, New Jersey’s Beachwood Beach West, Texas’ Ropes Park and Ohio’s Villa Angela State Park were also on the list.

The cleanest region for beaches was in the South East, followed by New York-New Jersey Coast and the Delmarva region of Virginia, Maryland Delaware. Beaches in Delaware, Minnesota and New Hampshire were the absolute winners of the examination.

NRDC senior attorney Jon Devine comments:

“America’s beaches have long suffered from pollution; the difference is now we know what to do about it. By making our communities literally greener on land, we can make the water at the beach cleaner. In the years to come, there’s no reason we can’t reverse this dirty legacy.”

States regularly test the beach water for human and animal waste bacteria under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act (BEACH), which results in closures whenever water contamination exceeds standards.

Check out how your favorite beach rates HERE.

The illnesses associated with polluted beach water include conditions such as skin rashes, pinkeye, respiratory infections, meningitis and hepatitis. By contrast, current standards focus on gastrointestinal illnesses such as the stomach flu.

Promising developments could improve protection of public health at U.S. beaches. Most importantly, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has embarked upon a major overhaul of its Clean Water Act regulations that apply to urban and suburban runoff pollution. These changes have the potential to broadly ensure that impervious areas that generate runoff pollution will be designed in a way to retain a significant amount of storm water on site.

Current water quality tests also take 24 hours or more to produce results, so beaches are not closed or placed under advisory until after beachgoers have spent a day swimming in water that did not meet water quality standards. The EPA’s changes represent much-needed progress toward promoting safer and healthier beaches along U.S. coastlines.

Source: The Natural Resources Defense Council

Written by Sy Kraft