EPA Loses Beach Water Lawsuit, Beachgoers Win

The settlement agreement will result in a safer, healthier experience for tens of millions of people who visit U.S. beaches each year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental group that won the agreement in a legal settlement.

The settlement, which was approved by the court September 5, requires the EPA to conduct new health studies and develop water quality standards by 2012 to protect the public from a broader range of swimming-related illnesses associated with beachwater pollution than it has in the past.

The current criteria were developed in 1985 and are based on health effects studies completed in the late 1970s.

The new criteria must protect against skin rashes, pinkeye, respiratory illnesses, and ear infections, as well as more serious illnesses such as hepatitis and meningitis. Current standards are based only on gastrointestinal ailments usually called the stomach flu.

The agency also committed to developing a rapid test method, enabling same-day results of pollution tests for beachgoers.

"This is a major victory for everyone who wants to go to the beach without worrying about getting sick," said Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC’s clean water project.

"The government needs to do a better job of screening for pollutants and pathogens and making the information available on a timely basis, so that families going to the beach know when it’s safe to swim," she said.

The agreement also requires EPA to study the health risks posed by stormwater runoff, the biggest known source of pollution at beaches. "Stormwater carries human and animal waste to the beach, where it can make people sick," said Stoner, "but EPA has previously ignored this major pollution source in setting safety standards."

NRDC sued EPA in May 2006 after the agency repeatedly failed to meet congressionally mandated deadlines to update its water quality standards based on new research and to develop new tests that provide same-day results.

Tests currently in use take 24-48 hours to produce results, so the information on whether a beach is safe for swimming is at least a day old, and often older, before people get it.

But learning the condition of the water at a favorite beach is crucial to remaining healthyA 1995 Santa Monica Bay health effects study showed that people who swim in coastal waters contaminated with polluted stormwater runoff are more likely to become ill than those that swim 400 yards or more away from a flowing storm drain.

"This settlement forces the EPA to develop new beach water quality criteria that will better protect the health of millions of beachgoers," said Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, the Santa Monica environmental organization that has worked closely with the NRDC to urge clean water enforcement.

"As a technical expert for NRDC on this case, I think that the settlement should lead to better protection of the public health for the hundreds of millions of beachgoers who enjoy our nation’s beaches every year," wrote Gold in his blog on Thursday.

"As a co-investigator on ongoing health effects studies in Avalon and at Doheny Beach," he wrote, "I can tell you that the scientific and environmental community will have to be vigilant with the EPA, watching closely that the new criteria development process truly is more protective.

The settlement does not require beaches to actually use the new tests, so Stoner is urging the U.S. Senate to pass the Beach Protection Act, legislation currently pending in Congress that would require states to start using the rapid tests within a year of their validation by the EPA.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.