Clean Water In the News

A national study of beach closures released yesterday found the vast majority of New Jersey's ocean beaches were never forced to close for pollution last year.

But while the report was good news for thousands of day-trippers, it revealed a few stubborn hot spots in the back bays that failed pollution tests at a much higher rate than the previous year.

That pushed up the number of beach closings in 2006 by 70 percent -- to 134 days from 79 days the year before. The bad news fell hardest on Ocean County, where some municipal beaches failed weekly tests at an alarming rate. One, Beachwood Beach West, failed 60 percent of the time.

The culprit, according to environmentalists, is runoff pollution washed into the back bays and rivers by rainstorms. The 10 worst offenders were all in Monmouth and Ocean counties, where environmentalists have long complained that increased population and development is increasing runoff.

The state's ocean beaches have not been completely problem free this summer. As of the end of last week, the state Department of Environmental Protection said it had issued 49 ocean beach closings this year. The biggest culprit has been linked to runoff from Wreck Pond in Monmouth County. That affected beaches in Spring Lake and Sea Girt, which have been ordered closed at least 12 times this year.

Still, the state's own weekly report released yesterday underlined what the national study found: Only a handful of ocean beaches at the Shore were being monitored for high bacteria levels.

Of the 10 worst beaches featured in the national report that accounted for many of the closures, only one, 4th Street in Ship Bottom, is an ocean beach; all the others are on back bays or rivers.

"For too long, the Shore has been held hostage by rain clouds," said Doug O'Malley, field director for Environment New Jersey, which presented the New Jersey report with Clean Ocean Action and state and federal politicians and environmentalists on the beach in Sea Bright yesterday. "If we want to keep our beaches open, we need the state to get tough on developers who are loving the Shore to death."

But while environmentalists focused on the negatives, state environmental regulators accused them of ignoring the positives -- and also noted that tougher storm-water regulations implemented by the state are designed to attack runoff pollution.

DEP spokeswoman Elaine Makatura said the report, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, focused on anomalies.

"I don't think the report highlights outstanding qualities and instead focuses on some minor imperfections," she said.

The report -- "Testing the Waters: A Guide to Beach Water Quality at Vacation Beaches" -- does not grade states or compare their beaches. That is largely because the level of testing differs from state to state, and the report notes that New Jersey has historically done a lot of testing.

For New Jersey's figures, the NRDC crunched data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the DEP about how often the Garden State's ocean and bay beaches from Monmouth to Cape May counties were closed because of high bacteria levels.

The water at 188 ocean beaches and 137 bay beaches is tested weekly for high levels of bacteria. If a test result exceeds the allowable limits, the beach is kept open, but retested the following day. If it fails again, the beach is closed.

The report noted a dramatic increase in the amount of rain last year during the testing season, which probably explained the higher number of beach closings. Local environmentalists laid the blame for some of the state's worst beaches on storm-water outfall pipes that deliver pollutants, including animal waste and fertilizers, directly to some bathing beaches after a rainfall.

In the case of Beachwood Beach West on the Toms River in Ocean County, environmental officials pointed to a new outfall pipe draining storm water from Route 166 in a highly developed area.

Environmental groups urged the EPA to expedite the implementation of same-day testing so that beaches would be closed on the actual days they have high bacteria readings rather than in some cases two days later.

They also want the state to test after rainstorms, not just on the regularly scheduled Mondays. And they prodded the state to track down and eliminate the pollution sources when bacterial level standards are perennially exceeded.

Maryann Spoto may be reached at mspoto@starledger.com