EPA Proposes Weaker Safe Swimming Guidelines

The walkovers that exist at beaches are there for a reason. Use them to get to the beach instead of walking across sensitive dunes, which will help reduce erosion. Dunes protect land against storm waves from the sea, and harbor specialized plants and animals. However, human activity and population expansion threaten their existence.

Photo: Thomas Northcut / Getty Images

related articles

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new safe-swimming guidelines that would weaken protections for people swimming at public beaches or otherwise coming into contact with water. According to groups critical of the standards, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Riverkeeper, the new standards would consider water as safe for swimming even if as many as 1 in 28 people get sick from coming into contact with it. This level of acceptable risk is weaker than the current standard, which many states have yet to adopt.

The new standard is also too weak to protect the very young, very old or the ill, critics say. And the testing requirements are so weak that blatantly unsafe water wouldn't always trigger beach closures because the offending tests could be averaged with those taken on days when the water was clean.

The NRDC further points out that the proposed EPA budget for state grants for water testing and notification, is zero, a cut of nearly $10 million. Already, only 55% of public beaches test water quality and only 44% test weekly. Riverkeeper has pointed out, on the Hudson River and elsewhere, people routinely swim in areas that are not public beaches. Riverkeeper's tests in the Hudson River and its tributaries show that water is unsafe for swimming (based on the current EPA guideline) more than 20% of the time.

The EPA proposal may make the water appear safer, but actual water quality would decrease.

Related: Before Swimming at Public Beaches, Ask These Questions

COMMENTS ()