OPINION: Changes to Federal Beach Grant Will Drive Up County Costs

The National Resource Defense Council released its 24th annual report card for beaches last week. They reviewed water sampling data from almost 3500 beaches that are sampled for bacteria every summer. NJ's beaches ranked third out of thirty states.

In NJ, the Department of Environmental Protection coordinates the weekly sampling and analysis that is performed by the county health departments in Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic and Cape May from mid May through Labor Day.

Some of these costs are funded by the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act grant administered by the Environmental Protection Agency. For the past three years, this grant has been cut from the federal budget every year and then - so far - restored.

The costs to the state and county will be going up due to new federal requirements for more sampling and analysis. The EPA guidance issued in 2012 – the first comprehensive change since 1986 - came without any commitment for additional funding. It was originally planned to become effective “within three years (i.e., by October 2015).”

One of these changes, the Beach Action Value (BAV), was introduced in this year's NRDC report, because the EPA is now requiring that counties adopt it in August (page 12) in order to qualify for the 2014 federal grant, which runs from October 1st 2013 through September 30th of 2014.

This was unexpected. In Michigan, the Department of Environmental Quality is concerned that the state will lose its federal grant this year because they won't have time to get legislative approval for changing their testing standards.

Acronym Alert. The 2012 Recreational Water Quality Criteria: STVs, GMs and BAVs

The standards that are being used to post advisories or close beaches are called a Single Sample Maximum (SSM) and a seasonal geometric mean. Individual samples at marine beaches can not exceed 104 colonies of enterococcus, or have a seasonal geometric mean – the average of weekly sampling results for about 90 days - that exceeds 35 colonies.

The standards are based on a swimmer having a risk of 19 in 1000 of becoming sick. The definition of illness in the current criteria does not include gastrointestinal symptoms unless a fever is present, and symptoms must occur within eight days of swimming.

This is being replaced with a choice of two Statistical Threshold Values (STVs) and 30-day Geometric Means. The STV will be either 110 or 130 colonies of enterococcus, depending on whether the state chooses to adopt an Estimated Illness Rate of 32 or 36 in 1000.

The new definition of illness will include gastrointestinal symptoms without a fever, and will include symptoms that occur 10-12 days from swimming. Since the EPA changed the definition of illness to include more cases, they have determined that the STV of 130 has the same risk of illness as the current SSM of 104. The STV of 110 colonies has a lower risk of illness.

The Geometric Mean will either be either 30 or 35 colonies, depending on the illness rate the state chooses, but will be averaged over 30 days, not 90.

How much will this increase the cost of sampling and laboratory analysis? Page 40 of the 2012 guidance: "the (STV) approach encourages monitoring because once an exceedance is observed, at least ten more samples need to be below the STV before water quality is considered unimpaired." Currently, only 3 resamples that are below the standard of 104 colonies need to be taken after there is an exceedance. That alone is over three times more resamples and analyses.

The change being required in this year's grant is the Beach Action Value. BAVs are used for posting advisories, not closing beaches. An advisory is a warning sign or alert recommending that the public “avoid swimming in water that has exceeded applicable water quality standards to reduce the potential of contracting a swimming related illness.”

Since 2009, health departments in Monmouth County have been posting advisories after one exceedance of the SSM of 104 (and closing the beach when there is a second consecutive exceedance).

But under the new rules, BAVs are set much lower than the standard that closes a beach. Only 60 or 70 colonies of enterococcus will trigger a BAV, depending on the illness rate the state chooses. Sites that exceed the BAV still need to be resampled before the advisory can be lifted, even though they are below the STV of 110 or 130 colonies. That makes BAVs a whole new set of resamples.

When these changes are implemented, sampling will be more driven by statistics than source tracking. At times Sanitary Surveys may be done hastily so that available staff can get all the sites sampled and delivered to the laboratory within the six hour holding time. The priority could become rote sampling simply to drive down the average, whether the source is a storm drain, seaweed or seagulls.

146 Pages of Comments

There are 146 pages of comments on this rule by state and local government and advocacy groups (Connecticut has their own document). Some of the most pragmatic comments were made by the Surfrider Foundation, on pages 44-46.

While Surfrider wants more sampling, they recognize that EPA's requirement that states “use a BAV for public notification purposes in order to remain eligible for their EPA Beach Grant may have unintended adverse consequences.” They also are concerned that “the cost of subsequent testing necessary to un‐post or reopen a beach … is without any increase in funding to support increased testing” and recommend that EPA initially “work with interested states to implement pilot programs to evaluate the effectiveness and cost impacts of BAV use” before requiring them.

Regardless of whether the EPA backs off on this year's grant requirement, the question is will they fund all the additional staff time and laboratory analysis that will be needed whenever and however the 2012 guidance is fully implemented.

Counties that have already seen their staff cut by half in water pollution programs, who are already borrowing staff from other programs to take samples, and who will have to pay contract laboratories for every additional analysis, will need it.

But EPA's unexpected requirement for implementing BAVs this year to qualify for the grant, while the funding for the grant was simultaneously eliminated from the federal budget, indicates otherwise. States may fill the gap for a while, but coastal counties will ultimately have to find the money to pay for this new “guidance”.