Exceeding Safe Swimming Standards

Summer is here, which means that our region’s water quality testing programs are in full effect.  

Already we see that when it rains, pollution pours off the land, and water quality suffers. To date, results from water testing exceeds safe standards for swimming.

Results from water samples taken Monday morning have been released, and 13 beaches in Ocean and Monmouth County exceeded safe swimming standards. Due to these results the NJDEP issued a swimming advisory for 8 beaches in Ocean and Monmouth Counties. An additional 5 beaches exceeded the standard, but were not issued an advisory by NJDEP. The reason for this may be that, at this time of the year, these beaches are “technically closed” due to no lifeguards on duty. COA has criticized this situation in the past…

The 8 beaches issued a swimming advisory are:

Beach_Name	Municipality	County_Name
5th Ave Bay Front	Seaside Park Borough	Ocean
Hancock	Seaside Heights Borough	Ocean
West Beach Avon Rd	Pine Beach Borough	Ocean
East Beach Station Ave	Pine Beach Borough	Ocean
Windward Beach	Brick Township	Ocean
Imperial House	Long Branch City	Monmouth
Elberon Bch Clb	Long Branch City	Monmouth
25th St Bay Front	Barnegat Light Borough	Ocean

These beaches have been re-sampled today, with results returning tomorrow. Depending on the results, the advisory may be lifted, or an official beach closure may be issued.

The 5 beaches that have exceeded safe swimming standards but not issued an advisory are:

Beach_Name	Municipality	County_Name
River	Point Pleasant Borough	Ocean
Reese Ave	Lavallette Borough	Ocean
Anglesea	Ocean Gate Borough	Ocean
Miller Beach	Highlands Borough	Monmouth
Wildwood	Ocean Gate Borough	Ocean

This has been the second week in a row of testing returning with several exceedances of safe standards for swimming. What this makes clear, and what COA has been stating for many years, is that water quality in our coastal waters is heavily dependent on the weather; when we have a rainy summer, with rain events occurring the day before or day of water sampling, we are likely to see more exceedances than if sampling occurred during a dry weather window. Both last week, and this week we saw rain events on Sunday and Monday.

For many years now, COA has been a leading voice working to make swimming in coastal waters an “any weather” activity, and advocating for more protective structuring, methods, funding and oversight for these beach monitoring programs. We believe that public awareness is the first and most important step both in ensuring safe swimming conditions for millions of beach goers each summer, and for getting at the underlying reasons for these exceedances. To learn more, and to stay up to date on weekly beach sampling results, visit our website and social media, and be sure to check NJBeaches.org or our social media before any beach day.

A Short Intro to Water Quality Testing in New Jersey

In New Jersey, water quality sampling occurs at bathing beaches (lifeguarded beaches) every Monday morning (unless there is a holiday that closes State offices). The results take 24 hours to get back from the lab, and are released and posted to the NJDEP website NJbeaches.org around noon the day after the sample was taken (normally Tuesday). If a result comes back that exceeds the standard for safe swimming, a “swimming advisory” is issued. This exceedance also requires authorities to conduct additional sampling on a daily basis until water quality results meet the standard.

To make this clear, we can look at the way this program has unfolded this week: Samples were taken at bathing beaches from Highlands to Cape May on Monday Morning, the results came back Tuesday and were posted to the website and made public around noon, some of these beaches exceeded the safe swimming standard, these beaches were issued a swimming advisory, and resampling began on Tuesday. Resampling will continue until results come back below the standard. Remember, it takes 24 hours to get results back; this is a blind spot in the monitoring program.

If two consecutive samples collected at a bathing beach exceed the standard, the beach is officially closed until subsequent sampling indicates that bacteria levels are again at a safe number.