Barnstable County Report

Swimmers Need Not Fear, Our Beach Patrol Makes Certain Cape’s Water Quality Is Safe

By George Heufelder, MS, RS, Director,
Barnstable County Department of Health & Environment
With summer upon us, have you ever wondered who watches over the water quality at your favorite bathing beach?
Well, each summer weekday and sometimes on weekends, a small group of individuals canvases Cape Cod to sample over 350 bathing beaches. They are the bathing beach patrol of the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment, part of a once-voluntary effort with a 25-year history.

In 2000, the Massachusetts Beaches Act was passed requiring all public and semi-public beaches to be tested weekly during beach season using standard bacterial indicators. The goal was to reduce the risk of disease through the identification of problem beaches, the identification and remediation of pollution sources and the notification of risks to the public.

While the beaches on Cape Cod are of the highest quality, you may occasionally see that your favorite beach is closed due to the presence of bacterial indicators. To keep the problem in perspective, we must understand how and why these closures are ordered.

First, understand that the bacterial indicators we use to classify our beaches as unswimmable are not necessarily harmful. In fact, the two indicators presently used are common in our intestine and, in most cases, don’t represent a virulent strain. E.coli, for instance, is instrumental in the production of Vitamin K in the human body, despite the bad reputation of its virulent strain (E. coli. H057). But because these organisms are voided in our feces, their presence in recreational waters suggests the possibility of contamination with sewage that may contain other virulent bacteria and viruses that can definitely ruin our day.

Secondly, there is a small problem with using indicator organisms as the basis for determining whether a beach should be closed. The organisms chosen can have sources other than human such as water birds and wildlife. If that’s the case, it still does not mean that there is no risk to swimmers, but that the danger is somewhat reduced. This is because viruses generally are not transmitted from animals to humans.

In short, the bacterial indicators that we use are the best we have and act as very conservative indicators of a public health threat.

The Environmental Protection Agency is sponsoring research to find real-time specific indicators of public health risk, but it will take a number of years to validate any new methodology.

What does this mean in relation to enjoying our bathing beaches and our confidence in the water quality? Well, it is important to remember that in more than 95 percent of the cases where we have closed a Cape beach due to a high bacteria count, the water quality is acceptable the following day!

This speaks to the transient nature of most contamination events. A rainstorm may wash the streets and adjacent land of the animal waste causing a high bacterial count that closes the beach. However, in most areas, natural dilution from tidal exchanges and ultraviolet light from the following sunny day, cleanse the areas in relatively short order.

Where beaches experience significant bacterial levels, the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment, the State Department of Public Health and/or you local health department conduct sanitary surveys to discount the possibility of overt human sources of bacterial contamination. They do this by checking septic system records and plans from the adjacent watershed areas and requiring upgrades and repairs as necessary. There’s also the possibility of an occasional “diaper load” adding to the problem, but, in general, beachgoers on Cape Cod and the Islands can be confident that there is a surveillance system in place that regularly assesses areas for potential contamination that may endanger the public health.

To find out more about the beach water quality on Cape Cod, our website, www.BarnstableCountyHealth.org, maintains up-to-date water quality statistics on all your favorite beaches along with answers to your most frequent questions.