Barnstable County Report

New EPA Testing Rules May End Unnecessary Cape Beach Closures

By George Heufelder, MS, RS, Director,
Barnstable County Department of Health & Environment

I am amazed how the solutions for problems sometimes come from unexpected places.

As many folks noticed, this summer Cape Cod beaches experienced a higher-than-normal number of beach closures. This was due in part due to timing of sampling efforts relative to rainstorms, which wash the contaminants on our roads and adjacent land into recreational waters.

But the other part of the problem relates to the historic and well-known difficulties with federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) bacterial indicators or “indicator organisms” used to classify recreational waters. Unfortunately, the bacteria that we measure and assume have public health significance have sources that really have little or no such implication. This problem has been known for ages. But the general attitude of local public health officials remains, “There’s nothing that we can do about it.”

Well, no longer.

Just recently the National Resources Defense Council, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, and the County of Los Angeles prevailed in a suit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency requiring timelines for the EPA to develop and validate new methods to use for the classification of beaches.

The current means of classifying beaches involves collecting a sample and culturing the bacteria in a laboratory. This requires 24 hours before the sample culture reveals the actual bacteria count. Consequently, regulators are a day late in closing a beach based on any bad sample. In addition, since any retest result also is delayed 24 hours, it’s possible that we keep a beach closed when it’s really at acceptable levels.

This feature of the monitoring program causes angst, loss of public confidence, and loss of valuable swimming time.

The court also has ordered the EPA to take a close look at the present surveillance system, including epidemiological studies to verify the adequacy of the present, and any future proposed, indicator organisms. (An epidemiological study involves a study of human populations exposed to coastal recreational waters that attempts to statistically link human health effects to concentrations of a substance thought to indicate potential for human infectious disease.)

Under the court ruling, epidemiological studies must be conducted near at least three marine beaches impacted by municipal wastewater treatment plants as well as areas known to be impacted by animal waste. Where epidemiological studies are already proposed, EPA must provide technical assistance in the design of the study and analyses of data.

To address the issue of a 24-hour delay in results, the EPA was ordered to validate and publish a “rapid” test method for use by October 15, 2012. “Rapid” is defined as 2-6 hours after the sample is received.

What does all of this mean to the average beachgoer?  Well, there is no doubt that the present system of classifying beaches is flawed. Although the present system may err on the safe side, closing beaches that should remain open, this is little comfort to the folks who planned on a nice day at the beach, but were told that the water is contaminated, when in fact it may not be.

The new approach holds the promise of developing real-time indicators of water quality that actually correlate to a public health risk. On Cape Cod, I believe that this will mean fewer closures and a better measure of public health protection.