Working for Healthy Water Quality at Connecticut Beaches

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CT | ME | NH

By Robert W. Varney
July 3, 2007

With the Fourth of July holiday upon us, and the summer's first heat wave already in the record books, Connecticut's short but sweet beach season is in high gear.

From late May until after Labor Day, residents and visitors gather with family and friends on Long Island Sound to bask in Connecticut's beach pastimes – wading, surfing, kite-flying, building sand castles, and of course, swimming. For good reason, beaches are the number one tourist destination in New England.

Unfortunately, carefree days at the beach are not always without risk. Beachgoers sometimes arrive at the coast only to find a sign saying: "Warning: swimming and water contact activities are not advised at this time."

This certainly hampers the spirit of the season and leaves people wondering: "Why is the water unsafe for swimming?" The answer is contaminated water. Sometimes, fecal contamination from both humans and animals ends up in beach water. It gets there from failing septic systems, sewage treatment plant overflows, illegal connections to sewers, pet and wildlife droppings, and boat discharges. In many cases, pollutants arrive from storm water pipes, washing pollutants that accumulate in streets and degraded coastal streams directly onto or near beaches.

To solve this problem, EPA is working with local and state governments to expand beach monitoring and reduce beach closures caused by bacterial contamination at beaches and freshwater lakes in New England.

Since 2002, EPA has awarded over $1 million to the Connecticut Department of Public Health's beach program – money that assists efforts to monitor water quality at beaches, notify the public about risks, and assess the sources of contamination that may cause these risks. Connecticut has used the grant funds to bring water quality samples from among the approximately 70 shoreline municipal and state park beaches that it tracks to the state laboratory in Hartford for analysis, ensuring more consistent, higher quality data on which to base management decisions. The grant funds have also assisted Connecticut with reporting beach monitoring results, closures and advisories.

The number of Connecticut marine beach closures in the last four years has been low but closely watched. Last summer in Connecticut, 39 out of 67 monitored beaches were closed one or several days for a total of 222 days out of more than 6000 beach days for the summer. That's a slight increase from previous years, and can be attributed to a small increase in the number of preemptive closures to protect swimmers from runoff associated with rainfall events.

Increased monitoring and reporting have also provided important data to key officials who now have a better understanding of the conditions that can lead to beach closings and advisories. In some cases targeted local actions have reduced pollution sources at beaches from Greenwich to Stonington.

The ultimate goal – to consistently reduce beach closures – still needs additional work to accomplish. The key challenge is identifying the sources of pollution leading to the beach closure, particularly when "non-point" sources are involved, and then securing adequate funding for extensive infrastructure improvements or other remedial actions.

Although EPA has provided technical assistance to our coastal states for many years, we are increasing our efforts this year to develop action plans for those communities with chronic contamination problems. EPA's goal is to eliminate chronic beach closures across New England. We are working with state and local officials to develop and implement aggressive efforts to remove sources of contamination, and to build public support to fund necessary improvements to sewer systems.

If you're concerned that a local beach is closed due to unhealthy bacteria levels, what can you do? Urge your local officials to diagnose the problem and then fix it – sometimes, the solution is fixing a broken sewer pipe or cleaning catch basins. Make sure septic systems are properly maintained, and report illicit discharges or sewer connections to officials. When walking your dog, be sure to pick up and throw away your pet's waste – don't let it go into storm drains and foul up your community's beach water. If you are a boater, use a pump-out facility.

We New Englanders are lucky to live near some of the most beautiful coastal areas found anywhere. We are also fortunate that we live in a region where so many people care about having a clean and healthy environment. Together, we can keep all of Connecticut's beaches healthy and safe and enjoy a truly carefree day at the beach.

More information:

Robert W. Varney is regional administrator of EPA's New England Office in Boston.

Working for Healthy Water Quality at Connecticut Beaches

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