There Are Worse Things than Sharks in the Water

When the warm weather returns and you prepare for a day of fun in the sun at the beach, add a new step to your routine, check online for water quality reports at the National Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) website. After analyzing three thousand United States beaches the NRDC found serious contamination in the waters. This contamination comes primarily from sewage pipes and storm water runoff that dump fecal waste, oil and other kinds of pollution into lakes and oceans. This contamination from sewage and storm water led to more than 24,000 beach closings and advisories in 2010. The 2010 beach closings and advisories were the second highest number in the last two decades. The contamination affects primarily the elderly, children, and those with compromised immune systems, and can lead to gastrointestinal illnesses, skin rashes, pinkeye and other health problems.

The worst beach contamination offenders: Avalon Beach and all of Cabrillo Beach Station in Los Angeles County; parts of Dohoney State Beach in Orange County; North Point Marina North Beach in Illinois; Beachwood Beach West in New Jersey. Florida's Keaton Beach, and four beaches in Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin, have failed water quality tests more than 25 percent of the time for the past five years in a row. While the Southeast did the best out of all the regions with just 4% of samples exceeding standards, there are still some precautions that should be taken when swimming in the ocean.

Check the NRDC website to see the water contamination at your beach, don't swim near a storm drain, and if the water looks or smells strange do not swim in it, frequently wash your hands, and take a shower after you swim. There also a few things you can do at home to prevent contamination such as fixing old, leaky sewage pipes and adding grass around parking lots to absorb rainwater. Helena Solo-Gabriele, an environmental engineer at the University of Miami in Florida, is hoping for faster testing techniques, the current detection takes twenty-four hours, to assist the public in knowing when waters are safe. She suggests that so long as reasonable precautions are taken, the public’s safety isn’t compromised by swimming at the beach.

-Sloane Tait, Legal Intern