VIRGINIA BEACH
Virginia slipped to 12th from fourth out of the 30 states ranked for clean beach water in an annual report by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Testing the Waters 2010: A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches,” released Tuesday, ranks coastal and Great Lakes states. States collect measurements of bacteria in beach water, which the environmental group compares to create the rankings.
Dan Horne, an environmental health supervisor for the Virginia Department of Public Health, said bacteria levels were unusually high in 2010 but he did not know why.
“Last year was a very unusual year,” Horne said. “It could be birds, animals, people not picking up after their dogs on the beach, those kinds of issues. We didn’t really see a correlation last year that we would expect from the rainfall events.”
The number of beach-closure days in Virginia increased from 51 in 2009 to 81 last year, according to the report. The count adds up all closure days at individual beaches in Virginia during the year.
In Virginia Beach, a city ordinance closes water to swimmers when the Department of Health finds too much bacteria in the water, though the beach stays open. As soon as the water sample shows too much bacteria, the Department of Health takes a new sample. The water reopens as soon as bacteria levels drop. For the past seven years, beach closures in Virginia Beach typically lasted a day or two.
The Virginia Department of Health in 2010 issued 12 advisories that the water was too bacteria-laden for safe swimming at some Virginia Beach beaches, Horne said. Chic’s Beach had the most, three advisories, according to data from the Virginia Department of Public Health. There were only two such advisories in Virginia Beach in 2009. So far in 2011, Chic’s Beach has been closed two days.
In Norfolk, there were nine closures last year, all at Capeview Avenue.
In the Hampton Roads area, the worst beach offenders last year were on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. At Hilton Beach in Newport News, nearly one in three weekly samples showed water polluted above the standard; at Lesner Bridge and Chic’s Beach in Virginia Beach, about one in eight samples was polluted above an acceptable level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency.
It’s hard to tell where the beach water pollution comes from because Virginia does not track causes, said Jon Devine, senior water attorney with the council.
Stormwater runoff, wildlife droppings and sewage leaks are possible sources of contamination. In general, the most common cause of bacteria-rich beach water is rainfall draining off roads and fertilized lawns, said David Beckman, water program director at the council.
North Carolina held steady in the beach water rankings at seventh place.
Beach closures nationwide increased 29 percent in 2010, though water quality measurements were essentially the same. Eight percent of tested water samples showed high levels of bacteria, compared with 7 percent in 2009.
Ruth Moon, (757) 222-5130, ruth.moon@pilotonline.com
Original story posted here.
Ruth Moon 