Fecal Bacteria Testing Will Continue This Summer at New Jersey's Beaches

Testing for fecal bacteria in the water along Jersey Shore beaches will continue this summer, the state Department of Environmental Protection said Wednesday, despite what you might have read elsewhere.

President Donald Trump's proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency are significant and well documented. Should his budget be approved by Congress, part of what may be lost here in New Jersey is an EPA-funded helicopter that patrols New Jersey's beaches, looking for pollution spills and illegal dumping. But what won't be affected is water quality testing, something that's been done for years by the state up and down New Jersey's coast.

The bulk of New Jersey's ocean water quality testing is done by the state DEP, and is not affected by Trump's proposed EPA budget cuts, a DEP spokesman confirmed to Patch Wednesday. Once a week, on Mondays, local health departments test the water quality at Jersey Shore beaches. They're looking for enterococcus bacteria, a fecal bacteria that commonly enters the ocean through stormwater runoff.

"We already have the funding in place for the testing and it will happen every Monday," said Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the Dept. of Environmental Protection. "That testing will start just before Memorial Day weekend and lasts all summer through Labor Day."

If the levels of enterococcus are too high, the state will either briefly shut down a beach or post an advisory. The state posts its findings on this public website. Last summer, Patch wrote about several beach closures due to elevated levels of the bacteria.

In the past, that EPA helicopter also took water samples, but that was stopped a few years ago, the DEP said. That testing was usually done a few hundred yards out at sea, while the state testing happens in the surf near shore.

What will also continue this summer is a DEP-operated small plane that flies up and down the New Jersey coast six days a week, Hajna said. That plane, which is looking for floating trash debris and algae blooms, is also paid for at the state level and is not affected by Trump's budget cuts.

"We consider the data collected from the (EPA) helicopter as supplemental to what we gather from the beaches and from our airplane flights," Hajna said.

During President Barack Obama's administration, Obama also proposed cutting funding for that EPA helicopter entirely, but Congress restored it, according to Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

However, Tittel said he's concerned because, "Trump is also rolling back programs that will cause more sewage in our waterways, such as cutting money for resiliency plans to make sure sewage plants don't get knocked out, and funding for combined sewer overflows. All of that stuff will make our beaches a lot dirtier."

Tittel also said he would like more funding given at the state level, because they only test on Mondays and it takes a few days to get lab tests back. There is more sophisticated testing equipment that can get results in a few hours, he said.

Wikimedia Commons image