America's Cleanest and Dirtiest Beaches Revealed

by Jess Leber · 2010-07-28 09:23:00 UTC
Topics:

If you prefer to relax at the beach in ignorant bliss, this may not be the blog post for you. But if you want to know whether your local beach ranks among the most polluted in the nation, by all means, keep reading.

I choose knowledge, even though it pains me that my favorite Long Island and New York beaches (Robert Moses State Park Beach, Rockaway Beach and Coney Island) are indeed pretty foul. You always had that sneaking suspicion (I mean, Coney Island, lets get real), but it's something else when it's confirmed and compared unfavorably to hundreds of others around the country.

This upsetting news comes via the Natural Resources Defense Council, which this morning released its 20th annual "Testing the Waters Report."  (Check out their ranking and report here.)

In 2009, they found, there were nearly 19,000 beach closing and advisory days, showing no real improvement from last year.  The Great Lakes was the most polluted region for five years running, where 13 percent of beachwater samples violated public health standards (compared to a national average of 7 percent.) The culprits? Pollution and human and animal sewage, largely due to large volumes of storm water that overwhelm sewer systems and/or natural ground surfaces that filter out pollutants. What's more, this year, because of the oil spill, there have already been 2,239 days in the Gulf alone (last year at this time, there were 237 closings in the Gulf.)

Yikes.

I wouldn't want to be telling you all this without letting you know what you can do about this. Knowledge without power to change is really frustrating, I know. There are a couple of things that can help reduce beach pollution, as NRDC points out.

First: Paving paradise in favor of a parking lot has not been good to our beaches. That's why green roofs, 'permeable pavement' and other green infrastructure can help absorb runoff and pollution before it gets anywhere near the beach. In Congress there's a bill, the Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act (H.R. 4202/S. 3561), to make green infrastructure and low impact development a national priority.

In addition to doing your own part, by conserving water, maintaining your septic system and disposing used motor oil, animal poop and and household chemicals properly, you can also ask your representatives to support this bill.

Second, the oil spill will certainly make this year's beach closures worse than last year. We need to do everything we can to support measures in Congress to make sure, triply sure, this never happens again. This week, the Senate and House unveiled their oil spill reform packages including an overhaul of drilling regulations. This doesn't go nearly far enough, but it's what we've got.

And I hate to sound like a broken record, but getting our nation to act to reign in climate change also is key to preventing this (and a whole lot of other problems) from getting worse. In a lot of areas, flooding will increase due to global warming, washing that much more sewage into our recreational waters. Unfortunately, action on global warming is exactly what is not in the Senate's energy package. That fight will continue on.

Check out NRDC's rankings and report here and their tips for how to have a safe beach summer here. See below a listing of the top and bottom beaches in the U.S.

Highest ranking of 200 popular beaches in 2009:

Minnesota (Lafayette Community Club Beach and Franklin Park at 13th Street on Park Point), New Hampshire (Hampton Beach State Park and Wallis Sands Beach at Wallis Road), California (Bolsa Chica State Beach, Huntington City Beach at the Beach Hut, Newport Beach, Salt Creek Beach at Dana Strands, and portions of Cardiff State Beach and Laguna Beach) and Alabama (Gulf Shores Public Beach). Unfortunately, as of July 27, 5-star Gulf Shores Public Beach in Alabama has been closed this year for 53 days due to the oil spill.

Lowest ranking of 200 popular beaches in 2009:

Florida (Ben T. Davis North, Dixie Belle Beach, Monument Beach, Navarre Park, Quietwater Beach, Simmons Park and Treasure Island Beach), Maine (Old Orchard Beach, Long Sands Beach and Short Sands Beach), Mississippi (Courthouse Road Beach, Edgewater Beach and Front Beach), North Carolina (one section of Nags Head), New York (Hamlin Beach State Park, Orchard Beach, Robert Moses State Park Beach, and sections of Rockaway Beach and Coney Island), Rhode Island (Narragansett Town Beach), and South Carolina (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina State Park and Campground, Springmaid Beach and Surfside Beach).

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Pott, Flickr

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Jess Leber is a Change.org editor. She most recently covered climate and energy issues as a reporter in Washington, D.C
PREVIOUS STORY:
Solar Is A Bargain Deal Compared To Nuclear
NEXT STORY:
Stopping the Water Grab in Nevada

COMMENTS (2)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.