Technical Resources for Beach Monitoring and Notification Programs

These resources can help beach program managers who monitor water quality and make decisions about when to issue an advisory or close a beach due to unsafe environmental conditions.

Applying for a Grant

The BEACH Act authorized the EPA to award grants to help states, Tribes, and territories develop and implement programs to monitor beach water quality and notify the public. The type of activities funded include:

collecting and analyzing water samples to determine whether they protect public health and to ensure they do not exceed water quality standards
notifying the public if water quality standards are exceeded
maintaining state databases of beach water quality and advisory information.

To be eligible for BEACH Act grants, states and territories must have coastal and Great Lakes recreational waters adjacent to coastal beaches or similar points of access used by the public. Tribes with coastal waters need Treatment as a State approval to operate a water quality standards program and the EPA-approved numeric recreational water quality standards for those waters. Eligible programs can submit applications for grants that the EPA awards every year to implement monitoring and notification activities.

More on how much grant money is awarded and which factors are used in the formula for calculating beach grant allocations

Monitoring Water Quality

Programs should develop and follow a monitoring plan and assessment procedures. Monitoring can be daily, weekly, or whatever sampling frequency that is consistent with the circumstances at a beach. Recipients of beach grants must monitor for fecal indicator bacteria (e.g., enterococci, E. coli), but programs may want to also monitor for algal toxins (Note: beach grant funds are not to be used for algal monitoring). Analyses of water for bacteria can use culture-based, qPCR, and digital PCR methods.

Recommended Water Quality Criteria, Beach Action Values, and Values for Swimming Advisories

Programs can use the EPA-approved recreational water quality criteria or values other than the EPA-recommended criteria for evaluating if an advisory or beach closing is needed. EPA has established beach action values for bacteria and swimming advisory values for cyanotoxins. A beach action value is a conservative “do not exceed” tool for making beach notification decisions that states do not have to adopt into their water quality standards.

Creating Predictive Models

The EPA has developed models (e.g., Virtual Beach) and released guidance on developing a predictive model for a beach. Predictive tools enhance current monitoring techniques by anticipating when water quality conditions might worsen and offer the potential for same-day notification.

Conducting Sanitary Surveys

Managers of recreational water programs can use sanitary surveys to investigate the sources of fecal contamination to a waterbody, assess the magnitude of pollution, and identify priority locations for water testing. Sanitary surveys for recreational waters involve collecting information at the beach or waterbody's shoreline and in the surrounding watershed. Data from sanitary surveys can be used to develop models to predict water quality and to prioritize state or county resources to help improve recreational water quality. The EPA has developed a mobile application with surveys for both fresh and marine waters.

Creating Advisories and Notifying the Public

Programs should develop and follow a public notification and risk communication plan that describes the measures to inform the public of the potential risks associated with water contact activities in the coastal recreation waters that do not meet applicable water quality standards for pathogen indicators.

More on notifying the public about pathogens (refer to chapter 5)

More on planning for cyanobacterial blooms

Submitting Data to the EPA

The BEACH Act requires beach grantees to submit monitoring (water quality), notification (advisory and closing), and location data for beaches to the EPA every year. The EPA provides resources and reference materials for beach program managers and IT staff responsible for submitting that data.

More on submitting beach data to the EPA