Great Lakes: EPA and States Have Made Progress in Implementing	 
the BEACH Act, but Additional Actions Could Improve Public Health
Protection (01-MAY-07, GAO-07-591).				 
                                                                 
Waterborne pathogens can contaminate water and sand at beaches	 
and threaten human health. Under the Beaches Environmental	 
Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act, the Environmental	 
Protection Agency (EPA) developed limits on pathogens that states
use to assess beach water quality. EPA can also provide grants to
states to develop water quality monitoring and public		 
notification programs. GAO was asked to assess (1) the extent to 
which EPA implemented the BEACH Act including how it allocated	 
grants to the states, (2) the monitoring and notification	 
programs developed by Great Lakes states, and (3) the effect of  
the BEACH Act on water quality monitoring and contamination at	 
Great Lakes beaches.						 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-07-591 					        
    ACCNO:   A68947						        
  TITLE:     Great Lakes: EPA and States Have Made Progress in	      
Implementing the BEACH Act, but Additional Actions Could Improve 
Public Health Protection					 
     DATE:   05/01/2007 
  SUBJECT:   Contamination					 
	     Environmental monitoring				 
	     Grant monitoring					 
	     Grants to states					 
	     Health hazards					 
	     Pollution monitoring				 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Public health					 
	     Water pollution control				 
	     Water quality					 
	     Water quality standards				 
	     Program implementation				 
	     E. coli Bacteria					 
	     Great Lakes					 

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GAO-07-591

   

     * [1]Results in Brief
     * [2]Background
     * [3]EPA Has Taken Steps to Implement the BEACH Act, but Its Gran

          * [4]EPA Has Implemented Some but Not All BEACH Act Requirements
          * [5]EPA's BEACH Act Grant Formula Does Not Adequately Reflect St

     * [6]Great Lakes States' Beach Monitoring and Public Notification

          * [7]Great Lakes States Used BEACH Act Grants to Develop Beach Mo
          * [8]Variation in Beach Monitoring and Public Notification Method

     * [9]The BEACH Act Has Helped Identify the Scope of Contamination

          * [10]Increased Monitoring Has Helped States Identify the Scope of
          * [11]Most of the Underlying Causes of Contamination Remain Unknow

     * [12]Conclusions
     * [13]Matter for Congressional Consideration
     * [14]Recommendations for Executive Action
     * [15]Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

          * [16]EPA's BEACH Act Grant Distribution Formula
          * [17]Simulations of Alternative BEACH Act Distribution Formulas

     * [18]GAO Contact
     * [19]Staff Acknowledgments
     * [20]GAO's Mission
     * [21]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

          * [22]Order by Mail or Phone

     * [23]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * [24]Congressional Relations
     * [25]Public Affairs

Report to Congressional Requesters

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

May 2007

GREAT LAKES

EPA and States Have Made Progress in Implementing the BEACH Act, but
Additional Actions Could Improve Public Health Protection
GAO-07-591

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 4
Background 6
EPA Has Taken Steps to Implement the BEACH Act, but Its Grant Distribution
Formula Does Not Adequately Reflect States' Monitoring Needs 11
Great Lakes States' Beach Monitoring and Public Notification Programs Vary
Across Localities and May Not Provide Consistent Levels of Public Health
Protection 21
The BEACH Act Has Helped Identify the Scope of Contamination, but
Underlying Causes Remain Unaddressed 31
Conclusions 40
Matter for Congressional Consideration 41
Recommendations for Executive Action 41
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 42
Appendix I Scope and Methodology 45
Appendix II Map of 35 States and Territories with Coastal Recreational
Waters 49
Appendix III GAO's Calculations for an Alternative BEACH Act Grant
Distribution Formula 50
Appendix IV Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency 57
Appendix V GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 60

Tables

Table 1: BEACH Act Grant Distribution Formula 19
Table 2: BEACH Act Funding Formula Inputs for Great Lakes States 20
Table 3: Number of Great Lakes Beaches Identified, Number and Percentage
of Beaches Being Monitored for the 2006 Beach Season 23
Table 4: Great Lakes Prioritized Beaches Reported by States for Monitoring
Using BEACH Act Grant Funds as of October 2006 24
Table 5: Monitoring Frequency of Great Lake Beaches by Priority 26
Table 6: Variation in Great Lakes States' Pathogen Indicator (E. coli) 
Thresholds and Responses to Water Quality Exceedances 29
Table 7: Great Lakes Beaches Reported Monitored by EPA in 2005, GAO
Sample, and Sample Disposition by State 46
Table 8: EPA Beach Season Length Factor and States Associated Funding
Levels 50
Table 9: EPA's Formula for Distributing $30 Million in BEACH Act Grants 51
Table 10: EPA's Formula for Distributing $10 Million in BEACH Act Grants
52
Table 11: Factors Used in BEACH Act Formula Allocations and Resulting 2006
Grants by State and Territory 52
Table 12: Difference in Allocations Using Current and Alternative Formulas
55

Figures

Figure 1: Map of the Five Great Lakes and Eight Great Lakes States with
Population Density by County 7
Figure 2: Potential Sources of Fecal Contamination at Beaches in the Great
Lakes 9
Figure 3: Time Lag Associated with Current Water Quality Monitoring and
Public Notification Methods 17
Figure 4: Reported Depth of Water Quality Sampling at Great Lakes Beaches
28
Figure 5: Variation in Public Notification Signs at Great Lakes Beaches 30
Figure 6: Number of Identified Beaches and Number of Identified Beaches
Monitored in the Great Lakes from 1999 to 2005 32
Figure 7: Estimated Changes in Frequency of Monitoring at Great Lakes
Beaches Since Passage of the BEACH Act 33
Figure 8: Number of Great Lakes Identified Beaches Monitored and Monitored
Beaches with at Least One Closure or Advisory from 1999 to 2005 34
Figure 9: Estimated Change in Ability to Make Decisions Based on Water
Quality Data Since Passage of the BEACH Act 35
Figure 10: Changes to Beach Grooming Process at a Racine, Wisconsin, Beach
37
Figure 11: Estimated Change in Public Awareness of Personal Actions on
Water Quality at Great Lakes Beaches Since Passage of the BEACH Act 38

Abbreviations

BEACH Act Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
USGS United States Geological Survey

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
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separately.

United States Government Accountability Office
Washington, DC 20548

May 1, 2007

Congressional Requesters

There are hundreds of beaches along the 5,000 miles of Great Lakes'
shoreline that spans eight states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota,
New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. These beaches provide
recreational opportunities to more than 30 million residents and visitors
each year. However, waterborne pathogens--bacteria, viruses, and parasites
that live in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and other warm-blooded
animals--can contaminate the water and sand at these beaches and threaten
human health. The key contributors to this contamination are partially
treated discharges from wastewater treatment plants; droppings from
wildlife, such as gulls and geese; and agricultural and municipal waste
that is often transported to beach-area waters by rain and storm water
runoff. Contact with or accidental ingestion of contaminated water can
cause vomiting, diarrhea, and other illnesses, and may be life-threatening
for susceptible populations such as children, the elderly, and those with
impaired immune systems. State and local health officials may issue health
advisories or close beaches when they believe levels of waterborne
pathogens are high enough to threaten human health. The Natural Resources
Defense Council reported that, in 2005, the Great Lakes beaches had at
least 2,740 days of health advisories or beach closures. There are
hundreds of beaches along the 5,000 miles of Great Lakes' shoreline that
spans eight states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. These beaches provide recreational
opportunities to more than 30 million residents and visitors each year.
However, waterborne pathogens--bacteria, viruses, and parasites that live
in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and other warm-blooded
animals--can contaminate the water and sand at these beaches and threaten
human health. The key contributors to this contamination are partially
treated discharges from wastewater treatment plants; droppings from
wildlife, such as gulls and geese; and agricultural and municipal waste
that is often transported to beach-area waters by rain and storm water
runoff. Contact with or accidental ingestion of contaminated water can
cause vomiting, diarrhea, and other illnesses, and may be life-threatening
for susceptible populations such as children, the elderly, and those with
impaired immune systems. State and local health officials may issue health
advisories or close beaches when they believe levels of waterborne
pathogens are high enough to threaten human health. The Natural Resources
Defense Council reported that, in 2005, the Great Lakes beaches had at
least 2,740 days of health advisories or beach closures.

Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is
responsible for publishing water quality criteria that establish
thresholds at which contamination--including waterborne pathogens--may
threaten human health. States are required to develop standards, or legal
limits, for these pathogens by either adopting EPA's recommended water
quality criteria or other criteria that EPA determines are equally
protective of human health. The states then use these pathogen standards
to assess water quality at their recreational beaches. However, because
many pathogens are difficult and costly to detect, state and local
officials have typically used more easily identified organisms that
indicate that pathogens may be present. During the 1960s and 1970s, EPA
evaluated several types of bacteria for use as pathogen indicators and
recommended using fecal coliforms--bacteria found in the intestines of
humans and warm-blooded animals--as a pathogen indicator for states'
recreational water quality standards. By 1986, new research questioned the
reliability of using fecal coliforms as a pathogen indicator, prompting
EPA to recommend new criteria using E.coli and enterococci as pathogen
Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is
responsible for publishing water quality criteria that establish
thresholds at which contamination--including waterborne pathogens--may
threaten human health. States are required to develop standards, or legal
limits, for these pathogens by either adopting EPA's recommended water
quality criteria or other criteria that EPA determines are equally
protective of human health. The states then use these pathogen standards
to assess water quality at their recreational beaches. However, because
many pathogens are difficult and costly to detect, state and local
officials have typically used more easily identified organisms that
indicate that pathogens may be present. During the 1960s and 1970s, EPA
evaluated several types of bacteria for use as pathogen indicators and
recommended using fecal coliforms--bacteria found in the intestines of
humans and warm-blooded animals--as a pathogen indicator for states'
recreational water quality standards. By 1986, new research questioned the
reliability of using fecal coliforms as a pathogen indicator, prompting
EPA to recommend new criteria using E.coli and enterococci as pathogen
indicators. However, as of 2000, only 11 states had adopted EPA's
recommended 1986 criteria for testing their recreational waters.

Recognizing the need for consistent water quality criteria at recreational
beaches, Congress passed the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal
Health (BEACH) Act of 2000 to improve states' beach monitoring programs
and processes for notifying the public of potential health risks from
contamination at beaches. The BEACH Act amended the Clean Water Act to
require the 35 eligible states and territories--including the 8 Great
Lakes states--to update their recreational water quality standards using
EPA's 1986 criteria for pathogen indicators. In addition, the BEACH Act
required EPA to (1) complete studies on pathogens in coastal recreational
waters and how they affect human health, including developing rapid
methods of detecting pathogens by October 2003, and (2) publish new or
revised water quality criteria by October 2005, to be reviewed and revised
as necessary every 5 years thereafter.

The act also authorized EPA to award grants to states, localities, and
tribes to develop comprehensive beach monitoring and public notification
programs for their recreational beaches. To be eligible for BEACH Act
grants, states are required to (1) identify their recreational beaches,
(2) prioritize their recreational beaches for monitoring based on their
use by the public and the risk to human health, and (3) establish a public
notification program. EPA grant criteria give states some flexibility on
the frequency of monitoring, methods of monitoring, and processes for
notifying the public when pathogen indicators exceed state standards,
including whether to issue health advisories or close beaches. The BEACH
Act authorized EPA to provide $30 million in grants annually for fiscal
years 2001 through 2005.^1 However, since fiscal year 2001, congressional
conference reports accompanying EPA's appropriations acts have directed
about $10 million annually for grants under the act. EPA has followed this
congressional direction when allocating funds to the program.

In the context of continuing health advisories and beach closures at Great
Lakes beaches since passage of the BEACH Act, you asked us to (1)
determine the extent to which EPA has implemented the act and evaluate
EPA's formula for allocating BEACH Act grants, (2) describe and evaluate
the monitoring and notification programs the eight Great Lakes states have
developed using BEACH Act grants, and (3) determine the effect that the
BEACH Act has had on water quality monitoring and contamination at Great
Lakes beaches.

^1Although the BEACH Act was originally authorized through 2005, Congress
continued to fund EPA's efforts under the act in 2006 and 2007.

To determine the status of EPA's implementation of the BEACH Act, we
analyzed the act, obtained and analyzed relevant agency documentation, and
interviewed officials from EPA headquarters and Region 5 (Chicago)
offices. To evaluate EPA's formula for allocating BEACH Act grants, we
obtained and analyzed EPA data on funding levels, interviewed officials
that developed the allocation formula, and conducted simulations to
demonstrate how alterations of the formula would shift funding and
potentially affect current allocations. To evaluate the programs the eight
Great Lakes states have developed using their BEACH Act grants, we
conducted a survey of a random sample of 140 of the 563 beaches EPA
identified as being monitored in the Great Lakes in 2005. Information
obtained through this survey was used to produce estimates^2 of beach
monitoring and notification activities at monitored Great Lakes beaches
for the 2006 beach season. We distributed an electronic questionnaire via
e-mail to local officials at a random sample of 140 beaches, and 93
percent of those surveyed responded to our questionnaire. Information
obtained through this survey was used to produce estimates of beach
monitoring and notification activities for the entire population of
monitored Great Lakes beaches for the 2006 beach season. In addition, we
interviewed BEACH Act administrators from each of the Great Lakes states.
To determine the effect the BEACH Act has had on Great Lakes beach
monitoring and contamination levels, we analyzed the results of our
questionnaire and the information provided by the eight state BEACH Act
administrators. We also met with and gathered information from other
agencies and nonprofit organizations working on Great Lakes issues, such
as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of
Greater Chicago, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. We took steps
to assess the reliability of EPA data on monitored beaches. Appendix I
includes more information about our scope and methodology. We conducted
our work from June 2006 through March 2007 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards.

^2In this report, all percentages based on our survey are estimates and
subject to sampling error. Unless otherwise noted, all percentage
estimates from this survey have 95 percent confidence intervals of within
plus or minus 10 percentage points of the estimate.

Results in Brief

EPA has implemented seven of the BEACH Act's nine requirements and
provisions. For example, EPA promulgated water quality standards for the
21 states and territories that had not adopted EPA's 1986 water quality
criteria and developed a national list of beaches. However, EPA has not
(1) completed the pathogen and human health studies that were required by
2003 or (2) published new or revised water quality criteria for pathogens
or pathogen indicators that were required by 2005. EPA told us that the
required studies are ongoing, but may take an additional 4 to 5 years to
complete, and that the development of new pathogen indicators would follow
completion of the studies. Although EPA has distributed approximately $51
million in BEACH Act grants between 2001 and 2006 to the 35 eligible
states and territories, EPA's formula for distributing BEACH Act grant
funds does not reflect the states' varied monitoring needs. EPA considered
the BEACH Act's emphasis on beach use and risk to human health in
developing the formula, which is based on three factors--length of beach
season; beach miles, as measured by length of shoreline; and beach use, as
measured by coastal population. If the program had received its full
funding of $30 million, each of the three factors would have had
approximately the same level of influence on the amount of BEACH Act grant
funds allocated to the states. However, because funding allocations have
only been about $10 million annually, the beach season factor has had a
greater influence (about 82 percent) on the total BEACH Act grants each
state received, while beach miles and beach use, which vary widely among
the states and can impact the public health risk, have had a significantly
smaller impact (about 9 percent each). As a result, while the Great Lakes
state's beach monitoring needs vary widely because of their differing
coastlines and coastal populations, the amount of each state's BEACH Act
grant is almost the same. For example, Indiana, which has 45 miles of
shoreline and a coastal population of 741,468, received about $205,800 in
2006 while Michigan, which has 3,224 miles of shoreline and a coastal
population of 4,842,023, received about $278,450 in 2006.

Each of the eight Great Lakes states has used its BEACH Act grant funding
to develop beach monitoring and public notification programs, but these
programs vary across states and localities and may not consistently
protect public health. Prior to the BEACH Act, only five of the eight
Great Lakes states had water quality monitoring programs, and now all
eight have a program in place. However, the Great Lake states' monitoring
and notification programs vary considerably in the frequency with which
they monitor their beaches, their monitoring methods, and their means of
notifying the public of health risks. For example, some states monitor
beaches they have designated as high priority as little as one or two
times per week, while others monitor their high-priority beaches daily.
These differences are due, in part, to the current BEACH Act funding
levels, which some Great Lakes state officials reported are inadequate for
sufficient monitoring. In addition, when local officials review water
quality results, they may make different decisions on whether or not to
issue a health advisory or close a beach even though the results show the
same level of contamination. This happens because, according to Great
Lakes states BEACH Act administrators, two states only issue health
advisories, two states only close beaches, and four states may take either
of these actions when water quality standards have been exceeded.

Since the passage of the BEACH Act, the frequency of water quality
monitoring at Great Lakes beaches has increased, helping states and
localities to identify the scope of contamination; however, in most cases,
the underlying causes of the contamination remain unknown and unaddressed.
Local officials reported that the frequency of monitoring had increased at
45 percent of Great Lakes beaches since the passage of the BEACH Act. The
increased monitoring has helped state and local officials determine which
beaches are more likely to be contaminated. However, in most cases, local
officials do not know the causes of contamination and, consequently, have
not been able to take actions to address those causes. Local officials at
67 percent of Great Lakes beaches did not know the sources of bacterial
contamination causing their exceedances of water quality standards during
the 2006 beach season. Furthermore, local officials indicated that actions
to address the sources of contamination had only been taken at an
estimated 14 percent of the monitored beaches we surveyed. Local officials
generally stated that they do not have the funds available to do the
investigations necessary to identify specific sources of contamination or
to take actions to mitigate the problem, and they can not use BEACH grant
funds for this purpose. Our review of the BEACH Act and discussions with
EPA officials indicate that it appears EPA cannot award BEACH Act grants
for these purposes. According to state and local officials, an overall
improvement in water quality throughout the Great Lakes will require a
long-term collaborative effort to address the underlying causes of
contamination and also will require increased funding.

To assist states and localities in identifying and addressing sources of
beach contamination, Congress should consider allowing states some
flexibility to use their BEACH Act grants to undertake limited research to
identify specific sources of contamination at monitored beaches and take
certain actions to mitigate these problems. In addition, we are
recommending that EPA establish a definitive time line for completing the
studies on pathogens and their effects on human health and for publishing
new or revised water quality criteria for pathogens and pathogen
indicators. To better account for states' varied monitoring needs, if
current funding levels remain the same, EPA should reevaluate the funding
formula factors to determine if the weight of the beach season factor
should be reduced, and the weight of the other factors should be
increased. To better ensure consistent levels of public health protection,
EPA should also provide states and localities with specific guidance on
monitoring frequency and methods and public notification. In commenting on
the draft report, EPA generally agreed with GAO's recommendations and
agreed to (1) take actions to establish an action plan and a definitive
time frame to complete studies and publish revised water quality standards
and (2) revise its guidance to states. With respect to our recommendation
to revise the current funding formula to better reflect states' needs, EPA
agreed with this recommendation, but stated that the states were reluctant
to make any substantial changes to the formula and were supportive of
EPA's plan to make only minor changes to the formula.

Background

More than 30 million people in the United States rely on the five Great
Lakes--Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario--as a principal source
of their drinking water, recreation, and economic livelihood. There are
hundreds of beaches along the Great Lakes' approximately 5,000 miles of
U.S. shoreline that spans eight states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Figure 1 shows the
five lakes and the eight states with Great Lakes shorelines, along with
their population concentrations.

Figure 1: Map of the Five Great Lakes and Eight Great Lakes States with
Population Density by County

Development on lands adjacent to the lakes has seriously degraded the
lakes' water quality and, in some areas, contaminated recreational waters
with pathogens--including bacteria, viruses, and parasites--that can
threaten human health and force restrictions on recreational activities
such as swimming at the beaches. Contact with or accidental ingestion of
water contaminated with these pathogens can cause vomiting, diarrhea, and
other illnesses, and may be life-threatening for susceptible populations
such as children, the elderly, and those with impaired immune systems.
When pathogen levels are high enough to threaten human health, officials
from local health departments or municipalities restrict public access to
beaches by issuing health advisories or through the use of beach closures
to lower the risk of public exposure to these pathogens.

One of the key contributors to this waterborne contamination is fecal
matter from humans and other warm-blooded animals. While sources can vary
from beach to beach, those close to urban areas are more likely to be
affected by sources such as wastewater treatment plants, combined sewer
overflows, and municipal storm sewer systems that can directly contribute
to high levels of bacterial contamination. Beaches in states with large
confined animal feeding operations may be affected by runoff from these
operations. Many beaches are affected by nonpoint source pollution when
storm water runs off impervious surfaces such as streets and parking lots
and picks up pollutants along the way. In addition, wildlife--in
particular seagulls and geese--can congregate on beaches and lead to
significant levels of fecal contamination. Figure 2 shows some of the
potential sources of fecal contamination at beaches in the Great Lakes.

Figure 2: Potential Sources of Fecal Contamination at Beaches in the Great
Lakes

Under the Clean Water Act, EPA is responsible for publishing water quality
criteria that identify thresholds at which pathogens may constitute a risk
to human health. States can then use EPA's criteria, or propose other
criteria that EPA deems are as protective of human health, to develop
water quality standards for their recreational beaches.^3 Because
pathogens are found sporadically in recreational waters and can be
difficult and costly to detect, EPA has recommended other more easily
identified organisms--called pathogen indicators--that can indicate the
potential for the presence of pathogens. During the 1960s and 1970s, EPA
evaluated several types of bacteria for use as pathogen indicators and
recommended using fecal coliforms as a pathogen indicator for state
recreational water quality standards. By 1986, new research questioned the
reliability of using fecal coliforms as a pathogen indicator and prompted
EPA to recommend new criteria using E. coli for freshwater and enterococci
for fresh and marine recreational waters.

In 1997, EPA announced a new national program to work with state, tribal,
and local governments to compile information on beach contamination
defining the national extent of the problem. EPA began gathering
information on state and local beach programs through its National Health
Protection Survey of Beaches in 1998. The survey collected information on
monitoring methods used to issue advisories and closures and the sources
of contamination at swimming beaches. In 1999, EPA published a multiyear
strategy aimed at improving recreational water quality programs. This
action plan noted that water quality monitoring programs varied widely at
the state and local levels, and its objective was to enable the consistent
management of recreational water quality programs.

Congress passed the BEACH Act in 2000, amending the Clean Water Act to
improve beach water quality monitoring notification programs. The act
defines coastal recreation waters as Great Lakes and marine coastal waters
designated for swimming, bathing, or similar water contact activities;
inland waters are not included in this definition. The BEACH Act required
states to adopt new or revised water quality standards by April 10, 2004,
for pathogens and pathogen indicators for their coastal recreation waters
that were as protective as EPA's published criteria. The act required EPA
to propose regulations setting forth new or revised water quality
standards for states that had failed to meet this deadline. In addition,
the BEACH Act required EPA to conduct studies of the relationship between
pathogens and human health and to publish new or revised criteria based on
those studies. The BEACH Act also authorized EPA to award grants to
states, local governments, and tribes to develop and implement beach
monitoring and notification programs. The BEACH Act required EPA to
develop and publish performance criteria that recipients must meet in
order to receive these grants.

^3Water quality standards include narrative and numeric criteria that
support specific designated uses and also specify goals to prevent
degradation of good quality waters.

EPA Has Taken Steps to Implement the BEACH Act, but Its Grant Distribution
Formula Does Not Adequately Reflect States' Monitoring Needs

EPA has implemented seven of the nine BEACH Act requirements and
provisions and has distributed approximately $51 million in BEACH Act
grants since 2001 and created a national water pollution database, among
other requirements. However, EPA has missed statutory deadlines for two
actions: (1) completing required studies on pathogens and human health for
both marine and freshwater by 2003 and (2) using these studies to publish
new or revised water quality criteria for pathogen indicators by 2005. In
addition, the grant distribution formula that EPA developed to distribute
BEACH Act grants does not adequately reflect the states' varied beach
monitoring needs because it does not appropriately reflect the length of
beach miles needing monitoring or the population using the beaches.

EPA Has Implemented Some but Not All BEACH Act Requirements and Provisions

Of the nine actions required by the BEACH Act, EPA has taken the following
seven:

Propose water quality standards and criteria--The BEACH Act required each
state with coastal recreation waters^4 to incorporate EPA's published
criteria for pathogens or pathogen indicators, or criteria EPA considers
equally protective of human health, into their state water quality
standards by April 10, 2004. The BEACH Act also required EPA to propose
regulations setting forth federal water quality standards for those states
that did not meet the deadline. On November 16, 2004, EPA published in the
Federal Register a final rule promulgating its 1986 water quality
standards for E. coli and enterococci for the 21 states and territories
that had not adopted water quality criteria that were as protective of
human health as EPA's approved water quality criteria.^5 According to EPA,
all 35 states with coastal recreational waters are now using EPA's 1986
criteria, compared with the 11 states that were using these criteria in
2000.

^4The BEACH Act defines coastal recreation waters as the Great Lakes and
coastal waters (including coastal estuaries) that states, territories, and
authorized tribes officially recognize (or "designate") for swimming,
bathing, surfing, or similar activities in the water. The BEACH Act
applies to 30 coastal and Great Lakes states and 5 U.S. territories. See
appendix II for a map of the 35 states and territories with coastal
recreational waters.

Provide BEACH Act grants--The BEACH Act authorized EPA to distribute
annual grants to states, territories, tribes and, in certain situations,
local governments to develop and implement beach monitoring and
notification programs. While the BEACH Act authorized $30 million per year
for BEACH Act grants, actual allocations have been about $10 million a
year in accordance with directions from Congressional conference reports.
Since 2001, EPA has awarded approximately $51 million in development and
implementation grants for beach monitoring and notification programs to
all 35 states. Alaska is the only eligible state that has not yet received
a BEACH Act implementation grant because it is still in the process of
developing a monitoring and public notification program consistent with
EPA's grant performance criteria. EPA expects to distribute approximately
$10 million for the 2007 beach season subject to the availability of
funds.

Publish beach monitoring guidance and performance criteria for grants--The
BEACH Act required EPA to develop guidance and performance criteria for
beach monitoring and assessment for states receiving BEACH Act grants by
April 2002. After a year of consultations with coastal states and
organizations, EPA responded to this requirement in 2002 by issuing its
National Beach Guidance and Required Performance Criteria for Grants. To
be eligible for BEACH Act grants, EPA requires recipients to develop (1) a
list of beaches evaluated and ranked according to risk, (2) methods for
monitoring water quality at their beaches, such as when and where to
conduct sampling, and (3) plans for notifying the public of the risk from
pathogen contamination at beaches, among other requirements.

Develop a list of coastal recreational waters--The BEACH Act required EPA
to identify and maintain a publicly available list of coastal recreational
waters adjacent to beaches or other publicly accessible areas, with
information on whether or not each is subject to monitoring and public
notification. In March 2004, EPA published its first comprehensive
National List of Beaches based on information that the states had provided
as a condition for receiving BEACH Act grants. The list identified 6,099
coastal recreational beaches, of which 3,472, or 57 percent, are being
monitored. The BEACH Act also requires EPA to periodically update its
initial list and publish revisions in the Federal Register. However, EPA
has not yet published a revised list, in part because some states have not
provided updated information.

^5EPA worked with the states and territories to identify their existing
water quality standards and to review them for consistency with the BEACH
Act requirements. On April 16, 2004, EPA sent a letter to environmental
agencies at all 35 states with coastal recreational waters and proposed
federal standards for those states that had not yet adopted EPA's 1986
criteria.

Develop a water pollution database--The BEACH Act required EPA to
establish, maintain, and make available to the public an electronic
national water pollution database. In May 2005, EPA unveiled "eBeaches," a
collection of data pulled from multiple databases on the location of
beaches, water quality monitoring, and public notifications of beach
closures and advisories.^6 This information has been made available to the
public through an online tool called BEACON (Beach Advisory and Closing
Online Notification). EPA officials acknowledge that eBeaches has had some
implementation problems, including periods of downtime when states were
unable to submit their data, and states have had difficulty compiling the
data and getting it into EPA's desired format. EPA is working to
centralize its databases so that states can more easily submit information
and expects the data reporting will become easier for states as they
further develop their system.

Provide technical assistance on floatable materials--The BEACH Act
required EPA to provide technical assistance to help states, tribes, and
localities develop their own assessment and monitoring procedures for
floatable debris in coastal recreational waters. EPA responded by
publishing guidance titled Assessing and Monitoring Floatable Debris in
August 2002. The guidance provided examples of monitoring and assessment
programs that have addressed the impact of floatable debris and examples
of mitigation activities to address floatable debris.

Provide a report to Congress on status of BEACH Act implementation--The
BEACH Act required EPA to report to Congress 4 years after enactment of
the act and every 4 years thereafter on the status of implementation. EPA
completed its first report for Congress, Implementing the BEACH Act of
2000: Report to Congress in October 2006, which was 2 years after the
October 2004 deadline. EPA officials noted that they missed the deadline
because they needed additional time to include updates on current research
and states' BEACH Act implementation activities and to complete both
internal and external reviews.

^6In order to house the water quality data, EPA decided to use EPA's
previously existing STORET (STORage and RETrieval) database. For beach
advisory and closing data, EPA created the PRAWN (Program Tracking
database for Advisories, Water Quality Standards, and Nutrients) database.
STORET is the repository for water quality, biological, and physical data
and is used by EPA offices, state environmental agencies, universities,
and other organizations. PRAWN is a repository for beach advisory and
closing data.

EPA has not yet completed the following two BEACH Act requirements:

Conduct epidemiological studies--The BEACH Act required EPA to publish new
epidemiological studies concerning pathogens and the protection of human
health for marine and freshwater by April 10, 2002, and to complete the
studies by October 10, 2003. The studies were to: (1) assess potential
human health risks resulting from exposure to pathogens in coastal waters;
(2) identify appropriate and effective pathogen indicator(s) to improve
the timely detection of pathogens in coastal waters; (3) identify
appropriate, accurate, expeditious, and cost-effective methods for
detecting the presence of pathogens; and (4) provide guidance for state
application of the criteria. EPA initiated its multiyear National
Epidemiological and Environmental Assessment of Recreational Water Study
in 2001 in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. The first component of this study was to develop faster
pathogen indicator testing procedures. The second component was to further
clarify the health risk of swimming in contaminated water, as measured by
these faster pathogen indicator testing procedures.^7 While EPA completed
these studies for freshwater--showing a promising relationship between a
faster pathogen indicator and possible adverse health effects from
bacterial contamination--they have not completed the studies for marine
water. EPA initiated marine studies in Biloxi, Mississippi, in the summer
of 2005, 3 years past the statutory deadline for beginning this work, but
the work was interrupted by Hurricane Katrina. EPA officials reported that
additional studies are planned for the summer of 2007, pending funding.

^7EPA used quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method to quantify
two types of bacteria, enterococci and bacteroides, at four freshwater
beaches on Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. The results of the water quality
tests were then correlated to health surveys of beachgoers who swam at the
beaches, by interviewing beachgoers as they left the beach, and again by
telephone 10 to 12 days after their beach visit to assess the levels of
diarrhea and gastrointestinal illness, as well as other adverse health
effects.

Publish new pathogen criteria--The BEACH Act required EPA to use the
results of its epidemiological studies to identify new pathogen indicators
with associated criteria, as well as new pathogen testing measures by
October 2005. However, since EPA has not completed the studies on which
these criteria were to be based, this task has been delayed.

An EPA official reports that EPA has not established a time line for
completing these two remaining provisions of the BEACH Act but estimates
it may take an additional 4-5 years. One EPA official told us that the
initial time frames in the act may not have been realistic. EPA's failure
to complete studies on the health effects of pathogens for marine waters
and failure to publish revised water quality criteria for pathogens and
pathogen indicators prompted the Natural Resources Defense Council to file
suit against EPA on August 2, 2006, for failing to comply with the
statutory obligations of the BEACH Act.

In the absence of new criteria for pathogens and pathogen indicators,
states continue to use EPA's 1986 criteria. EPA reaffirmed the use of
these indicators when it published the draft Implementation Guidance for
Ambient Water Quality for Bacteria in May 2002 and when it set forth state
water quality standards in November 2004. However, there are two
significant limitations to using these indicators:

           o The current approved methods of analyzing E.coli and enterococci
           require a long incubation period, during which time the bacteria
           grow to detectable levels. Local officials at 96 percent of Great
           Lakes beaches reported that it took 18-36 hours to get results on
           water quality samples once the samples reached the laboratory.
           Consequently, water quality sample results indicate the previous
           day's bacterial levels, and health advisories or beach closures
           are based on those levels. By the time the results are compiled
           and health advisories or notices are posted, the contamination may
           or may not have cleared up. In any case, beach monitoring
           personnel would need to retest the water to determine whether
           there was still contamination and go through this 18-36 hour cycle
           again to establish the current conditions. Real-time or near-time
           analytical methods would enable officials to better protect human
           health because their actions would be based on more timely and
           current information. EPA scientists acknowledge that the public
           would like nearly immediate testing methods, but note that the
           technology does not yet exist.
           o The current pathogen indicators--E.coli and enterococci --may
           not be good indicators of the presence of pathogens or health
           risks. EPA scientists also noted that E.coli may not be an
           effective indicator because it is ubiquitous and occurs naturally
           in many environments. In addition, current testing methods cannot
           distinguish whether fecal contamination is from a human or animal
           source. Human fecal contamination may indicate the presence of
           pathogens that pose a greater risk to humans than does the
           presence of fecal contamination from pets or wildlife. While there
           are methods to determine the source of fecal contamination, such
           as microbial source tracking, scientists we spoke with noted that
           this method is time-intensive, expensive, and not readily
           available.

           The lack of a reliable indicator and the lag time for test results
           using current methods could lead to unnecessary beach closures, or
           conversely, keeping beaches open when they should have been
           closed. Because local officials generally use the same laboratory
           tests to determine the results of water quality sampling, this is
           a potential problem for all 35 states and territories with coastal
           recreational waters and not just the Great Lakes states. A time
           lag of the entire process is shown in figure 3.

Figure 3: Time Lag Associated with Current Water Quality Monitoring and
Public Notification Methods

Note: Figure 3 represents a best case scenario where test results are
available within 24 hours. In some cases, it may take officials upward of
36-48 hours to get water quality results and make notification decisions.

EPA's BEACH Act Grant Formula Does Not Adequately Reflect States' Monitoring
Needs

While EPA distributed approximately $51 million in BEACH Act grants
between 2001 and 2006 to the 35 eligible states and territories, its grant
distribution formula does not adequately account for states' widely varied
beach monitoring needs. When Congress passed the BEACH Act in 2000, it
authorized $30 million in grants annually, but the act did not specify how
EPA should distribute grants to eligible states. Beginning in 2001, EPA
consulted with representatives from the Coastal States Organization and
the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control
Administrators to consider the states' needs. EPA determined that
initially $2 million would be distributed equally to all states to cover
the base cost of developing water quality monitoring and notification
programs. EPA then developed a distribution formula for future annual
grants that reflected the BEACH Act's emphasis on beach use and risk to
human health. EPA's funding formula includes the following three factors:

           o Length of beach season--EPA selected beach season length^8 as a
           factor because states with longer beach seasons would require more
           monitoring.
           o Beach use--EPA selected beach use as a factor because more
           heavily used beaches would expose a larger number of people to
           pathogens, increasing the public health risk and thus requiring
           more monitoring. EPA used coastal population^9 as a proxy for
           beach use because information on the number of beach visitors was
           not consistently available across all the states.
           o Beach miles--EPA selected beach miles because states with longer
           shorelines would require more monitoring. EPA used shoreline
           miles,^10 which may include industrial and other nonpublicly
           accessible areas, as a proxy for beach miles because verifiable
           data for beach miles was not available.

           Once EPA determined which funding formula factors to use, EPA
           officials weighted the factors. EPA intended that the beach season
           factor would provide the base funding and would be augmented by
           the beach use and beach mile factors. EPA established a series of
           fixed amounts that correspond to states' varying lengths of beach
           seasons to cover the general expenses associated with a beach
           monitoring program. For example, EPA estimated that a 3-month, or
           less, beach season would require approximately two full-time
           employees costing $150,000, while states with beach seasons
           greater than 6 months would require $300,000. Once the allotments
           for beach season length are distributed, EPA determined that 50
           percent of the remaining funds would be distributed according to
           states' beach use, and the other 50 percent would be distributed
           according to states' beach miles, as shown in table 1.
		   
8EPA used information on the length of beach seasons reported in the
National Health Protection Survey of Beaches for the states or territories
that submitted a completed survey. EPA estimated the beach season length
for Alaska based on several factors.

^9EPA used the Census Bureau's 2000 Census data as a surrogate for coastal
population.

^10EPA used NOAA's The Coastline of the United States to quantify
shoreline miles.

           Table 1: BEACH Act Grant Distribution Formula

Formula factor      Amount of grant                                        
Beach season length Less than 3 months: $150,000                           
                                                                              
                       3-4 months: $200,000                                   
                                                                              
                       5-6 months: $250,000                                   
                                                                              
                       Greater than 6 months: $300,000                        
Beach use           50% of funds remaining after allotment of beach season 
                       length funding.                                        
Beach miles         50% of funds remaining after allotment of beach season 
                       length funding.                                        

           Source: EPA.

           ^aStates with less than a 3-month beach season only receive the
           $150,000 in beach season length funding.

           EPA officials told us that, originally, the factors would have
           received relatively equal weight. Using the distribution formula
           above and assuming a $30 million authorization, this would have
           resulted in the following allocation across the 35 eligible
           states: beach season--27 percent (about $8 million); beach use--37
           percent (about $11 million); and beach miles--37 percent (about
           $11 million). However, since 2002, funding levels for BEACH Act
           grants have been about $10 million each year. Once the
           approximately $8 million, of the total $10 million available for
           grants, was allotted for beach season length, this left only $2
           million, instead of nearly $22 million, to be distributed equally
           between the beach use and beach miles factors. This resulted in
           the following allocation across the 35 eligible states: beach
           season--82 percent (about $8 million); beach use--9 percent (about
           $1 million); and beach miles--9 percent (about $1 million). As a
           result, beach use and beach miles, which vary widely among the
           states, account for a much smaller portion of the distribution
           formula and, consequently, there is little variation in grant
           amounts across the states compared with their monitoring needs.

           Across the Great Lakes, there is significant variation in coastal
           populations and in miles of shoreline, but the current BEACH Act
           grant allocations are relatively flat. For example, Indiana, which
           has 45 miles of shoreline and a coastal population of 741,468,
           received about $205,800 in 2006, while Michigan, which has 3,224
           miles of shoreline and a coastal population of 4,842,023, received
           about $278,450 in 2006. If EPA were to reweight the factors so
           that they were still roughly equal given the $10 million
           appropriation, states' grants would better reflect these
           variations.^11 Table 2 shows the Great Lakes states' beach season
           lengths; beach use, as indicated by coastal populations; and beach
           miles, as indicated by shoreline miles; and compares their current
           BEACH Act grants with estimates of how much their grants would be
           if EPA reweighted the formula given the current appropriation
           levels of approximately $10 million.^12

Table 2: BEACH Act Funding Formula Inputs for Great Lakes States

                                                                Estimated                     
                                                                    grant                     
                                                               allocation                     
                                                                    using                     
                     Beach use      Beach            Grant     reweighted                     
              Beach   (coastal      miles allocation(based factors (based                     
             season population (shoreline   on $10 million on $10 million                     
State        length   in 2000)     miles)   appropriation) appropriation) Estimateddifference 
Illinois          4  6,021,097         63         $246,646       $250,310              $3,664 
Indiana           4    741,468         45          206,304         91,485            -114,819 
Michigan          4  4,842,023      3,224          285,214        402,148             116,934 
Minnesota         4    236,946        189          204,639         84,932            -119,707 
New York^a        4 16,088,089      2,625          361,565        702,739             341,174 
Ohio              4  2,767,328        312          225,694        167,821             -57,873 
Pennsylvania      4  2,946,892        140          224,471        163,007             -61,464 
Wisconsin         4  1,992,393        820         $227,448       $174,729            -$52,719 

Sources: EPA and GAO.

^aIncludes Atlantic and Great Lake coasts.

Because of the current formula allocations, some states and localities
have expressed concerns that their BEACH Act grants are insufficient to
adequately monitor their beaches. For example, state officials in Michigan
and Wisconsin reported that, due to limited financial resources and the
large number of beaches in their states, they are unable to test all of
their beaches, or to test them more than once per week. Similarly, local
officials at 44 percent of the beaches we surveyed reported that their
BEACH Act grants were either inadequate or very inadequate for the purpose
of monitoring their beaches; while 31 percent reported that their BEACH
Act grants were adequate or very adequate.^13 One state official indicated
that if their state's funding level decreases, several of their localities
would prefer to end their beach monitoring programs.

^11We conducted a simulation to allocate funding based on the ratios
obtained when the $30 million authorizations was anticipated. We
constructed the formula to maintain the 27 percent weight for beach season
while allocating a $10 million appropriation amount. This simulation
demonstrates how altering the formula would shift funding, affecting
current allocations for the Great Lakes states.

^12GAO conducted a simulation for all 35 coastal states and territories to
determine how their grants funding levels would change if EPA reweighted
the formula given the current appropriation levels of approximately $10
million. See appendix III for a description of this simulation and results
for all states.

EPA recognizes that there are limitations to the factors in its grant
distribution formula and that, as a result of current funding allocations,
the factors are no longer relatively equally weighted. Beginning in
February 2006, EPA convened six workshop meetings to evaluate potential
changes to the formula, with 25 of the 35 eligible states participating.
The work group considered several modifications to the formula including:
(1) reducing the fixed factor based on beach season length from a base of
$150,000 to $100,000, so that other factors have more weight; (2)
replacing shoreline miles data with actual beach length data now available
from the BEACON database; and (3) replacing coastal county population with
data from a NOAA marine survey of the number of participants in beach
recreation activities. EPA notes that the work group has also discussed
including a factor related to the number of water samples collected. At
the time of this report's release, EPA had not changed the funding
formula.

Great Lakes States' Beach Monitoring and Public Notification Programs Vary
Across Localities and May Not Provide Consistent Levels of Public Health
Protection

All eight Great Lakes states have used BEACH Act grants to develop beach
monitoring and public notification programs. However, the frequency with
which they monitor their beaches, the methods to monitor beaches, and the
processes for notifying the public of health advisories and beach closures
vary within and across states. These variations may lead to inconsistent
levels of public health protection across beaches in the Great Lakes.

^13Based on our survey, an estimated 41 percent believe that their grants
were inadequate, and an estimated 3 percent believe that these grants are
very inadequate. Further, about 30 percent believe that their grants were
adequate, and 1 percent believe that these grants are very adequate.

Great Lakes States Used BEACH Act Grants to Develop Beach Monitoring and Public
Notification Programs

All eight Great Lakes states have used BEACH Act grants to develop beach
monitoring and public notification programs. Three of the eight Great
Lakes states--Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin--did not have water
quality monitoring programs prior to the BEACH Act and used their BEACH
Act grants to implement such programs. The remaining five states expanded
their existing beach monitoring programs. In most cases, EPA gives the
BEACH Act grants directly to state environmental protection agencies,
which administer the grants, compile and submit water quality monitoring
and public notification data to EPA, and prepare grant applications and
annual reports.^14 The states usually distribute the funds they receive to
localities who implement or develop monitoring and notification programs.
The localities, through local health departments or other public health
agencies, usually collect water samples at local beaches and post results.
EPA notes that localities have traditionally played the lead role in
implementing these programs because they are often more familiar with
local problems and may be better suited to address them.

To be eligible for BEACH Act grants, EPA requires states, tribes, or local
governments to develop, among other things: (1) a list of beaches
evaluated and ranked according to risk; (2) methods for monitoring water
quality at their beaches, such as when and where to conduct sampling, and
(3) plans for notifying the public of the risk from pathogen
contamination.

Develop a list of beaches. EPA required states and territories that
received BEACH Act grants to develop and submit to EPA lists of their
beaches that identified whether there was a monitoring program in place
for each beach. EPA's BEACH Act grant performance criteria also required
states and local government to rank their beaches based on beach use and
risk to human health from pathogens. In developing their beach
classification and prioritization schemes, the Great Lakes states
considered beach use and accessibility, historical contamination problems,
and proximity to known sources of contamination. Table 3 shows the number
of Great Lakes beaches and the percentage being monitored, as reported by
officials from the Great Lakes states for the 2006 beach season.

^14The only exception is Pennsylvania, where all of the state's beaches
are in Erie County. As such, in 2006, Pennsylvania became the only state
in the country with a county-run program, and Erie County is the only
locality that receives grants directly from EPA.

Table 3: Number of Great Lakes Beaches Identified, Number and Percentage
of Beaches Being Monitored for the 2006 Beach Season

                    Number of Great Lakes Number of beaches     Percentage of 
State               beaches identified         monitored beaches monitored 
Illinois                            69                54               78% 
Indiana                             30                25                83 
Michigan                           905               212                23 
Minnesota                           79                39                49 
New York^a                          38                38               100 
Ohio                                54                54               100 
Pennsylvania                        12                12               100 
Wisconsin                          192               123                64 
Total                            1,379               557               40% 

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by state BEACH Act officials.

^aNew York has shoreline miles both along the Atlantic Ocean and along
Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. There are 348 beaches in the state of New
York, and all are monitored.

Develop methods for monitoring water quality. EPA also recommended that
states and localities develop a three-tiered plan that prioritizes beaches
for monitoring. EPA intended the beach prioritization scheme to allow
beach managers to devote more resources and intensive monitoring and
notification efforts to those high-use and/or high-risk beaches. A tier 1
classification indicates that the beach is a high-use and/or high-risk
beach and, therefore, is a high priority for monitoring. A tier 2 beach is
a medium-use and/or medium-risk beach and is a lower priority for
monitoring. A tier 3 beach is a low-use and/or low-risk beach and is a low
priority for monitoring. All eight Great Lakes states prioritized their
beaches for monitoring according to EPA's suggested factors of beach use
and risk to human health. Great Lakes beaches have varying numbers of
high, medium, and low-priority beaches, as shown in table 4.

Table 4: Great Lakes Prioritized Beaches Reported by States for Monitoring
Using BEACH Act Grant Funds as of October 2006

                            Number of beaches by priority
State        High   Medium  Low Beaches prioritized for monitoring 
Illinois^a     49        5 15^b                                 54 
Indiana         7       10    6                                 23 
Michigan      207 Varies^c  334                                207 
Minnesota       9       30    0                                 39 
New York       20       13    5                                 38 
Ohio           41        0   11                                 52 
Pennsylvania   11        1    0                                 12 
Wisconsin      34       39   50                                123 

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by state BEACH Act officials.

^aDoes not include Chicago beaches because Chicago did not originally
apply for BEACH Act grants.

^bllinois does not monitor its 15 tier 3 beaches.

^cMichigan reported that the number of tier 2 (medium) priority beaches
varies. Michigan does not monitor its 334 tier 3 beaches.

Develop public notification plans. EPA's grant performance criteria
require states and localities that find their beach water contamination
exceeds EPA's criteria to notify the public or resample the water. EPA's
guidelines allow states to monitor for two pathogen indicators in
freshwater--E. coli and enterococci--using two water quality testing
options--a single sample or a geometric mean ("geomean") based on no fewer
than five samples equally spaced over a 30-day period. Health departments
may also use observations of the presence of visible debris/contaminants,
as well as predicted high levels of rainfall or sewage releases.^15 If
there is a water quality exceedance, states or localities may resample if
there is reason to doubt the accuracy or certainty of the sample results.
If the second sample indicates that a water quality standard has been
exceeded, states and localities must provide prompt public notification.
State or local health officials decide whether or not to issue a health
advisory or close a beach. EPA's performance criteria allow states and
localities to develop signs or "functionally equivalent" communication
measures, which may include press releases, signs posted at the beach, or
Internet sites, among other things. All of the Great Lakes states have
developed public notification plans and may post beach advisory and/or
closure decisions on signs on the beach, or on the Internet, among other
methods.

^15In the case of predicted high levels of rainfall or sewage releases,
local officials responding to our survey reported that about 13 percent of
Great Lakes beaches issue preemptive closures.

Variation in Beach Monitoring and Public Notification Methods May Lead to
Inconsistent Protection of Public Health

While the Great Lakes states and localities have generally adhered to
EPA's criteria for receiving BEACH Act grants, their beach monitoring and
public notification programs vary considerably. EPA grant criteria and the
BEACH Act give states and localities some flexibility as to: (1) the
frequency of monitoring; (2) which beaches are selected for monitoring,
methods of monitoring; and (3) processes for notifying the public when
pathogen indicator levels exceed state standards, including the decision
to close beaches or issue a public health advisory. Nevertheless, we
identified significant variability in the Great Lakes states beach
monitoring and public notification programs, including the frequency at
which they monitor high-priority beaches, the depths at which they take
water samples, and the processes they use for notifying the public of
health risks from pathogen criteria.

Frequency of monitoring. Some Great Lakes states are monitoring their
high-priority beaches almost daily, while other states monitor their
high-priority beaches as little as one to two times per week. The
frequency with which the Great Lakes states monitor their beaches varies,
due in part to the availability of funding. For example, state officials
in Michigan and Wisconsin reported a lack of funding for monitoring. While
EPA officials reported that daily beach monitoring is recommended for
high-priority beaches, EPA acknowledges that frequency and location of
monitoring may be limited by funding and staffing levels. Table 5 shows
the variation in monitoring at Great Lakes beaches.

Table 5: Monitoring Frequency of Great Lake Beaches by Priority

State        High-priority     Medium-priority    Low-priority     
Illinois     5-7 days per week 1 day per week     Not monitored    
Indiana      5 days per week   5 days per week    5 days per week  
Michigan     1-2 days per week 1 day per year     Not monitored    
Minnesota    2 days per week   1 day per week     Not monitored    
New York     1-2 days per week Once every 2 weeks 1 day per month  
Ohio         4 days per week   Not applicable^a   1 day per week   
Pennsylvania 2 days per week   1 day per week     Not applicable^b 
Wisconsin    4-7 days per week 2 days per week    1 day per week   

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by state BEACH Act officials.

^aOhio reported that the state does not currently classify any beaches as
tier 2.

^bPennsylvania reported that the state does not currently classify any
beaches as tier 3.

Because of the variation in the number of days beaches are tested, more
information is known about some beaches than others, and it is difficult
to compare data across beaches. For example, local officials at one
high-priority beach in our sample reported that their beach was monitored
on 10 days out of the 90-day beach season. On 1 of these 10 testing
days--or 10 percent, the samples exceeded the applicable water quality
standards, causing the beach to be closed. In contrast, local officials at
another high-priority beach in our sample reported that their beach was
monitored on 92 days of its 95 day beach season. On 22 of these 92 testing
days--or 24 percent, the samples exceeded the applicable water quality
standards, causing the beach to be closed. At first glance, the first
beach would appear to have better water quality than the second beach.
However, because the first beach was tested on only 10 days, conclusions
cannot be reliably drawn about the water quality for the remaining 80 days
of the beach season. One state official commented that human health could
be better protected if the managers were taking more samples.

Without daily testing at all beaches, conclusions also cannot be drawn
about the number of safe days at beaches. However, EPA appears to do just
that in its annual performance report, which concluded that beaches were
"open and safe for swimming" on 97 percent of the days of the 2005 season
nationwide, exceeding EPA's 94 percent benchmark goal for fiscal year
2006. This percentage assumes that any day that a beach was open it was
safe for swimming, even if it was not tested.^16 Additionally, according
to EPA data, in 2005, 3,245 of the possible 58,710 beach days in the Great
Lakes, or 5.5 percent, were under an advisory or closure and unsafe for
recreational use.^17 Based on EPA's methodology, the beaches were open and
safe for swimming on the other 94.5 percent of the days during the season.
However, this conclusion cannot be drawn because nothing is known about
the quality of the water on days that water is not tested. According to
EPA officials, the balance of the other 94.5 percent of the days for which
no advisory or closure action was in effect--days on which the beaches are
open--is subject to the limitations and uncertainties of current
monitoring practices, including relatively infrequent monitoring for the
most part, and testing methods that require 18-36 hours to obtain results.
EPA officials indicated that the benefits of water quality monitoring
generally outweigh these limitations and uncertainties.

Methods of sampling. Most of the Great Lakes states and localities use
similar sampling methods to monitor water quality at local beaches. For
example, officials at 79 percent of the beaches we surveyed reported that
they collected water samples during the morning, and 78 percent reported
that they always collected water samples from the same location.
Collecting data at the same time of day and from the same site ensures
more consistent water quality data. However, we found significant
variations in the depth at which local officials in the Great Lakes states
were taking water samples. According to EPA, depth is a key determinant of
microbial indicator levels.^18 EPA's guidance recommends that beach
officials sample at the same depth--knee depth, or approximately 3-feet
deep--for all beaches to ensure consistency and comparability among
samples. Great Lakes states, however, varied considerably in the depths at
which they sampled water, with some sampling occurring at 1-6 inches and
other sampling at 37-48 inches. Figure 4 shows the variation in the depths
at which Great Lakes state officials took water quality samples.

^16If a sample exceeds a standard, a locality will typically resample
until the test is normal.

^17EPA calculates the total number of beach days by estimating a beach
season (number of days the beach is open) for each beach and summing this
across all beaches in the Great Lakes.

^18EPA's Environmental Monitoring for Public Access and Community Tracking
(EMPACT) project examined five beach environments to determine if
beach-specific characteristics impact beach monitoring results and found
that the depth of water sample collection influences bacterial densities.

Figure 4: Reported Depth of Water Quality Sampling at Great Lakes Beaches

Note: Percentages may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding.

Public notification. Local officials in the Great Lakes differ in the
information they use to decide whether to issue a health advisory or close
beaches when water contamination exceeds EPA criteria and in how to notify
the public of their decision. The EPA criteria for single-sample tests or
a 5-day geometric mean for E. coli indicate that single-sample test
results cannot exceed 235 bacteria colonies per 100/ml sample, and geomean
results cannot exceed 126 bacteria colonies per 100/ml sample.^19 However,
even with these designated testing thresholds, the decisions on whether or
not to issue a public health advisory or close a beach can vary within and
across the Great Lakes states. This happens because states have
established different standards for triggering an advisory or closure, and
states vary in whether they will issue advisories or closures or both. For
example, Minnesota and Ohio only issue health advisories; Indiana,
Michigan, and Wisconsin issue both health advisories and beach closures;
and Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania only issue beach closures. In
addition, while most states will issue an advisory or close a beach
following the first water quality standard exceedance, in some cases,
officials will resample and not close the beach until the standard is
exceeded on 2 consecutive days. Table 6 shows the variation in states'
pathogen indicator thresholds and responses to water quality exceedances.

^19EPA's 1986 Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Bacteria. Michigan, New
York, and Wisconsin also continue to test for fecal coliforms in addition
to E. coli.

Table 6: Variation in Great Lakes States' Pathogen Indicator (E. coli) 
Thresholds and Responses to Water Quality Exceedances

                Issue                                  Issue   Closure        
State        advisory Advisory threshold^a          closure threshold      
Illinois     No^b     Not applicable                Yes     235 single     
                                                               sample         
Indiana      Yes      235 single sample or 126      Yes     235 single     
                         geomean                               sample or 126  
                                                               geomean        
Michigan     Yes      300 single sample or 130      Yes     300 single     
                         geomean                               sample or 130  
                                                               geomean        
Minnesota    Yes      235 single sample or 126      No      Not applicable 
                         geomean^c                                            
New York     No       Not applicable                Yes^d   235 single     
                                                               sample or 126  
                                                               geomean        
Ohio         Yes      235 single sample             No      Not applicable 
Pennsylvania No       Not applicable                Yes     235 single     
                                                               sample or 126  
                                                               geomean        
Wisconsin    Yes      235 single sample or 126      Yes     1,000 single   
                         geomean                               sample         

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by state BEACH Act officials.

^aColonies per 100/mL.

^bThe Chicago Park District issues advisories following a 235 single
sample and issues closures following a 1,000 single sample.

^cEPA approved Michigan's threshold in 1993 determining that there was no
statistical difference between 235 and 300 based on the estimated number
of gastrointestinal illnesses per 1,000 swimmers.

^dNew York state officials indicated that a 235 single sample or 126
geomean would generally prompt a beach closure, however the state sanitary
code provides local health departments some flexibility to conduct site
specific assessments to determine if a beach closure is appropriate.

In addition to using information from water quality samples, officials in
at least four Great Lakes states--Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and
Wisconsin--are using predictive models that use real-time data such as
rainfall and water temperature to predict water quality conditions and to
help make more timely decisions about beach closings and advisories.
Officials in Lake County, Illinois, have used BEACH Act grants in the
development of SwimCast, a predictive model that has proven to be 89-95
percent accurate when comparing measured results versus predicted
conditions. In Indiana, officials have used BEACH Act grants and worked
with officials from USGS to develop Project SAFE (Swimming Advisory
Forecast Estimate), which uses real-time information on weather and water
data collected at several locations to predict E. coli count probability.
EPA guidance states that predictive models can effectively supplement but
not replace beach monitoring programs to provide conservative estimates
during the lag time between sampling and water quality test results.

Also, states' and localities' means of notifying the public of health
advisories or beaches closures vary across the Great Lakes. Some states
post water quality monitoring results on signs at beaches; some provide
results on the Internet or on telephone hotlines; some distribute the
information to local media. When asked to rank the most effective method
of notifying the public of a water quality exceedance, six state BEACH Act
Administrators indicated that posting signs at the beach is the single
most effective method; however, states also vary in the form and content
of their beach signage. Of the beach signs that we reviewed, the
appearance and wording varied considerably and, although it was
recommended in EPA's performance criteria, not all included the effective
date(s) of the health advisory or beach closure or the date the water
quality sampling was conducted, as shown in figure 5.

Figure 5: Variation in Public Notification Signs at Great Lakes Beaches

The BEACH Act Has Helped Identify the Scope of Contamination, but Underlying
Causes Remain Unaddressed

Since the passage of the BEACH Act, increased monitoring has improved the
overall understanding of the scope of contamination in the Great Lakes and
helped local officials determine which of their beaches are more likely to
be contaminated. However, the underlying causes of contamination are
largely unknown and remain unaddressed. Although a few localities have
been able to use the results of monitoring to identify and take steps to
address sources of bacterial contamination, most do not know the sources
of the contamination and, consequently, have not taken actions to address
them. State and local officials generally stated that they did not have
the funds available to investigate and address specific sources of
contamination.

Increased Monitoring Has Helped States Identify the Scope of Contamination

Because the frequency of monitoring has increased at Great Lakes beaches
since the passage of the BEACH Act, states and localities have a better
understanding of the overall scope of contamination. BEACH Act officials
from six of the eight states--Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York,
Ohio, and Wisconsin--reported that the number of beaches being monitored
in their state has increased since the passage of the BEACH Act in 2000.
For example, in Minnesota, state officials reported that only one beach
was being monitored prior to the BEACH Act, and there are now 39 beaches
being monitored in three counties. In addition, EPA data shows that, in
1999, the number of identified beaches in the Great Lakes was about 330,
with about 250 of those being monitored. In 2005, the most recent year for
which data are available, the Great Lakes states identified almost 900
beaches and were monitoring about 550, as shown in figure 6.^20

20EPA officials have had difficulty tracking the total number of monitored
and unmonitored beaches because states have changed their beach
inventories over the years. In addition, double counting of beaches has
occurred in the past as historical data were not always vetted by the
state officials, and because local counties with dual jurisdictions may
have double counted beach data.

Figure 6: Number of Identified Beaches and Number of Identified Beaches
Monitored in the Great Lakes from 1999 to 2005

Note: From 1998-2002, EPA collected information on beach monitoring from
states through a series of voluntary surveys; participation rates in these
surveys varied from year to year. States receiving BEACH Act grants are
now required to submit information on the number of beaches in their
state, number of monitored beaches, and other related information to EPA.

In addition to an increase in the number of beaches being monitored, the
frequency of monitoring at many of the beaches in the Great Lakes has
increased. For example, state BEACH Act officials in Pennsylvania and
Indiana reported that, although the number of beaches being monitored in
their states had not increased, the frequency with which the beaches were
monitored did. Indiana officials noted that, prior to the BEACH Act,
monitoring was done a few times per week; now monitoring is done 5-7 days
per week. In addition, based on our survey, an estimated 45 percent of
Great Lakes beaches increased the frequency of their monitoring since the
passage of the BEACH Act, as shown in figure 7. For example, local
officials in one Ohio county reported testing some beaches along Lake Erie
twice a month prior to the BEACH Act; they are now tested once a week.

Figure 7: Estimated Changes in Frequency of Monitoring at Great Lakes
Beaches Since Passage of the BEACH Act

The increased scope and frequency of monitoring, in response to the BEACH
Act, is helping to identify the overall scope of contamination in the
Great Lakes. While the number of beaches being monitored in the Great
Lakes has increased, the percentage of beaches reporting at least one
health advisory or closure remained around 40 percent from 1999 to 2005.
Figure 8 shows the number of monitored beaches with at least one advisory
or closure from 1999 to 2005.

Figure 8: Number of Great Lakes Identified Beaches Monitored and Monitored
Beaches with at Least One Closure or Advisory from 1999 to 2005

Note: From 1998-2002, EPA collected information on beach monitoring from
states through a series of voluntary surveys; participation rates in these
surveys varied from year to year. States receiving BEACH Act grants are
now required to submit information on the number of beaches in their
state, number of monitored beaches, and other related information to EPA.

Because of the information available from BEACH Act monitoring activities,
state and local beach officials are now better able to determine which of
their beaches are more likely to be contaminated, which are relatively
clean, and which may require additional monitoring resources to help them
better understand the levels of contamination that may be present. For
example, state BEACH Act officials reported that they now know which
beaches are regularly contaminated or are being regularly tested for
elevated levels of contamination. Officials at 54 percent of Great Lakes
beaches we surveyed believe that their ability to make advisory and
closure decisions has increased or greatly increased since the BEACH Act
initiated water quality monitoring, as shown in figure 9.

Figure 9: Estimated Change in Ability to Make Decisions Based on Water
Quality Data Since Passage of the BEACH Act

Note: Percentages may not add to 100 percent due to rounding.

Most of the Underlying Causes of Contamination Remain Unknown and Unaddressed

While some localities have been able to identify and address local sources
of contamination, the specific sources of contamination at most Great
Lakes beaches are not known. States and localities report that, because
they lack funding to investigate and mitigate sources of contamination,
the underlying causes of contamination at most beaches have not been
identified or addressed. Based on our survey, local officials at 67
percent of Great Lakes' beaches did not know the sources of bacterial
contamination causing their exceedances of water quality standards during
the 2006 beach season.

Nonetheless, five of the eight Great Lakes state BEACH Act officials
reported that the increased monitoring has helped some local officials in
their state identify the sources of contamination. These officials
identified the following examples of localities where contamination
sources have been identified and, in some cases, local actions have been
taken to address them:

           o Illinois--Beach monitoring led officials at one beach in Chicago
           to identify a sewer break, prompting the city to fix the leaking
           sewer and remove 6 million cubic yards of sand.
           o Michigan--In Traverse City, local officials have used monitoring
           data to identify problems at their wastewater treatment plants
           which resulted in plant improvements.
           o Ohio--The Lucas County Health Department has identified private
           sewage systems that are contaminating local beaches.
           o Minnesota--With the establishment of the state's beach program
           following the BEACH Act, state and local officials in Minnesota
           formed a beach committee that includes representation from the
           state pollution control agency, local and state health
           departments, local sewage districts and utilities, University of
           Minnesota researchers, and other groups. The beach committee has
           coordinated efforts to identify the sources and causes of beach
           contamination. For example, where beach monitoring data has
           indicated problems at normally clean beaches, the sanitary
           district has investigated these situations and found and repaired
           broken pipes.
           o Wisconsin--Officials in Racine began looking into high numbers
           of beach closures and advisories at one of their beaches in 1999.
           Using the results of water quality monitoring, these officials
           were able to identify a storm water outfall adjacent to the beach
           that was contributing to the contamination and developed an
           underground treatment system and wetland area to filter the
           discharge. In addition, city officials determined that beach
           grooming procedures and the overall geography of the beach were
           also contributing to the contamination, and they improved their
           beach grooming techniques and regraded the beach to reduce
           standing water. With these corrective actions, the city was able
           to reduce the number of beach health advisory and closure days
           from 62 in 2000 to 3 in 2006. Figure 10 illustrates the changes to
           the city's beach grooming processes.

Figure 10: Changes to Beach Grooming Process at a Racine, Wisconsin, Beach

In addition to these efforts to identify and address local sources of
contamination, local officials report an overall increase in awareness of
how personal actions can impact water quality at beaches, as shown in
figure 11. For example, not adhering to proper beach practices--such as
using swim diapers for young children--or not properly disposing of trash
can lead to increased problems with wildlife such as seagulls and geese.
In addition to actions that the public can take to mitigate contamination,
there are also actions beach managers can take, such as ensuring the
availability of sufficient trash cans and functioning restrooms, that can
also help mitigate beach contamination. Local officials report that they
have taken some of these actions on a limited basis.

Figure 11: Estimated Change in Public Awareness of Personal Actions on
Water Quality at Great Lakes Beaches Since Passage of the BEACH Act

Nevertheless, EPA officials stated that the primary source of
contamination at beaches generally is reported by state officials as
"unknown." Comprehensive sanitary surveys can help local water program
managers identify persistent problems; ascertain the sources and magnitude
of contamination; suggest appropriate actions to control contamination and
identify priority locations for sampling.^21 Although local officials at
Great Lakes beaches reported conducting field observations to determine
the sources of contamination at 88 percent of the beaches, comprehensive
sanitary surveys have been conducted at only 48 percent of the beaches.

One reason why sanitary surveys have not been more widespread is lack of
funding, but EPA has concluded that BEACH Act grant funds can only be used
for this purpose under certain circumstances.^22 In particular, sanitary
surveys can be done during the development of a monitoring program when
states are prioritizing their beaches for monitoring or when there is a
need to reprioritize the beaches. EPA has initiated a pilot sanitary
survey effort throughout the Great Lakes, working with state and county
Great Lakes beach managers to design and implement a beach sanitary survey
project for Great Lakes recreational waters. EPA posted a Request for
Proposal in August 2006 indicating that $500,000 would be available to
fund pilot surveys at Great Lakes beaches. Nine state or county agencies
submitted proposals for conducting sanitary surveys at numerous beaches.
EPA expects that this work will result in the development of a tool for
watershed-based sanitary surveys that could be used by others. EPA made
award decisions in December 2006 and anticipates grant awards in April
2007.

^21Sanitary surveys are used to identify sources of pollution and provide
information on source controls and identification, persistent problems,
and management actions. EPA's National Beach Guidance and Required
Performance Criteria for Grants states that a sanitary survey can be an
effective tool for protecting human health at bathing beaches and
providing information that helps in designing monitoring programs.

Because state and local officials do not have enough information on the
specific sources of contamination and generally lack funds for
remediation, most of the sources of contamination at Great Lakes' beaches
have not been addressed. Local officials indicated that actions to address
the sources of contamination had only been taken at an estimated 14
percent of the monitored beaches. While none of the eight Great Lakes
state officials suggested that the BEACH Act was intended to help
remediate the sources of contamination, some said that they lack the funds
needed to mitigate the sources of contamination that increased monitoring
has helped to identify. However, our review of the BEACH Act and EPA's
criteria found that they both specify that BEACH Act grant funds should be
used only for monitoring and notification purposes. Several state
officials believe that it may be more useful to use BEACH Act grants to
identify and remediate sources of contamination rather than just continue
to monitor water quality. Local officials also reported a need for funding
to identify and address sources of contamination. Furthermore, at EPA's
National Beaches Conference in October 2006, a panel of federal and
academic researches recommended that EPA provide the states with more
freedom on how they may spend their BEACH Act funding.

^22The BEACH Act provides that EPA may award grants to states and
localities for "monitoring and notification" programs. 33 U.S.C. S
1346(b)(2)(A). According to EPA officials, the term "monitoring"
encompasses limited investigations to determine sources of contamination
but does not include remediation to address the source of the
contamination.

According to state and local officials, as well as other Great Lakes
stakeholders, an overall improvement in water quality throughout the Great
Lakes will require a substantial effort directed toward both large-scale
initiatives and localized actions to address the underlying causes of
contamination. State officials reported that combined sewer overflows and
sewage disposal problems throughout the Great Lakes must be addressed.
Although some communities have taken steps in this direction, others
continue to discharge partially treated wastewater into the Great Lakes as
part of their wastewater treatment processes. In addition, more localized
action is also needed to address some sources of contamination at Great
Lakes beaches. Examples include regrading the beaches to reduce standing
water and minimizing the use of impervious surface materials to construct
parking lots adjacent to beaches to reduce storm water runoff.

Conclusions

EPA has made progress in implementing many of the BEACH Act's requirements
but two critical actions, relating to the completion of pathogen studies
and developing new water quality criteria, have not been completed as
required by the act and may not be completed for several more years.
Without the completion of these studies and the development of new water
quality criteria, states will have to continue to use existing methods
that are already outdated for monitoring water quality at their beaches.
The use of these methods limits states' ability to obtain water quality
test results and make beach closing decisions in a timely manner to ensure
that public health is adequately protected. However, EPA has not
established a firm time line to guide the completion of the studies and
the development of the new criteria, so it is unclear when states can
expect to receive updated methods to guide their monitoring efforts.

In addition, although EPA developed a formula to distribute BEACH Act
grants to the states, this formula was based on the assumption that the
program would receive its fully authorized allocation of $30 million.
During the last 5 years, the program has not received full funding, and
EPA has not adjusted the formula to reflect the impacts of reduced levels
of funding. As a result, the current distribution formula fails to
adequately take into account the monitoring needs of the states. Instead,
it places the greatest emphasis on the length of the beach season and not
enough emphasis on other factors, such as beach use and beach miles, that
vary greatly across states, and which also impact the public health risk
and significantly influence the level of monitoring that states need to
undertake. While we recognize that any changes to the distribution formula
would inevitably result in some states receiving more funds and some less,
unless the program is fully funded as authorized, the current distribution
formula does not reflect the states' varied monitoring needs.

Finally, the BEACH Act has had a significant impact in helping the Great
Lakes states increase their level of monitoring, which in turn has
increased their knowledge about the scope of contamination at area
beaches. However, the variability in how the states are conducting their
monitoring and how they are using their monitoring results to notify the
public have raised concerns about the adequacy of protection provided
among and across Great Lakes states. In addition, because it appears that
BEACH Act funds cannot currently be used to investigate the source of
contamination or remediate an identified problem, states have been unable
to address the contamination that they now know exists. While we recognize
that funding for BEACH Act grants has been limited over the last 5 years,
we believe that additional flexibility for the states to use a portion of
their BEACH Act grants to help them identify the source of contamination
if their monitoring has identified a reoccurring problem would be helpful.
In this regard, we also believe that EPA could provide guidance to ensure
that states are still conducting the monitoring programs expected by the
BEACH Act and not diverting all their monitoring funds to investigation
and mitigation.

Matter for Congressional Consideration

As it considers reauthorization of the BEACH Act, Congress should consider
providing EPA some flexibility in awarding BEACH Act grants to allow
states to undertake limited research to identify specific sources of
contamination at monitored beaches and certain actions to mitigate these
problems, as specified by EPA.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To ensure that EPA complies with the requirements laid out in the BEACH
Act, we recommend that the Administrator of EPA take the following three
actions:

           o Establish a definitive time line for completing the studies on
           pathogens and their effects on human health, and for publishing
           new or revised water quality criteria for pathogens and pathogen
           indicators;
           o If current funding levels remain the same, revise the formula
           for distributing BEACH Act grants to better reflect the states'
           varied monitoring needs by reevaluating the formula factors to
           determine if the weight of the beach season factor should be
           reduced and if the weight of the other factors, such as beach use
           and beach miles should be increased; and
           o To better ensure consistent levels of public health protection,
           EPA should provide states and localities with specific guidance on
           monitoring frequency and methods and public notification.
		   
		   Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

           In commenting on the draft report, EPA generally agreed with GAO's
           recommendations and agreed to (1) take actions to establish an
           action plan and a definitive time frame to complete studies and
           publish revised water quality standards and (2) revise its
           guidance to states. With respect to our recommendation to revise
           the current funding formula to better reflect states' needs, EPA
           agreed with this recommendation, but stated that the states were
           reluctant to make any substantial changes to the formula and were
           supportive of EPA's plan to make only minor changes to the
           formula. EPA's comments are included in appendix IV.

           As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the
           contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution
           until 30 days from the report date. At that time, we will send
           copies to the EPA Administrator and other interested parties. We
           will also make copies available to others upon request. In
           addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web
           site at http://www.gao.gov .

           If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please
           contact me at (202) 512-3841 or [email protected]. Contact points
           for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may
           be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major
           contributions to this report are listed in appendix V.

           Anu K. Mittal
		   Director, Natural Resources and Environment
		   
		   List of Requesters

           The Honorable Evan Bayh
		   United States Senate

           The Honorable Richard Durbin
		   United States Senate

           The Honorable Russell D. Feingold
		   United States Senate

           The Honorable Carl Levin
		   United States Senate

           The Honorable Richard Lugar
		   United States Senate

           The Honorable Barack Obama
		   United States Senate

           The Honorable Debbie Stabenow
		   United States Senate

           The Honorable George Voinovich
		   United States Senate

           The Honorable John Dingell
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Rahm Emanuel 
		   ouse of Representatives

           The Honorable Luis V. Gutierrez
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Brian M. Higgins
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Dale Kildee
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Carolyn C. Kilpatrick
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Mark Kirk
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Dennis Kucinich
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Sander M. Levin
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Janice Schakowsky
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Louise Slaughter
		   House of Representatives

           The Honorable Bart Stupak
		   House of Representatives
		   
		   Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

           The objectives of this review were to (1) determine the extent to
           which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has implemented
           the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH)
           Act of 2000 and evaluate EPA's formula for allocating BEACH Act
           grants, (2) describe and evaluate the monitoring and notification
           programs the eight Great Lakes states have developed using BEACH
           Act grants, and (3) determine the effect that the BEACH Act has
           had on water quality monitoring and contamination at Great Lakes
           beaches.

           We identified and analyzed applicable laws, regulations, policies,
           and procedures to determine what actions EPA has taken to
           implement the act and what remains to be addressed. Specifically,
           we reviewed the act to identify what actions the agency was
           required to take. To identify the actions EPA has taken to
           implement the act's requirements and provisions, we reviewed
           notices and regulations published in the Federal Register and
           agency documents, and interviewed agency officials at EPA
           headquarters, EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office, EPA
           Region 5 (Chicago), EPA Region 2 (New York), and EPA's National
           Exposure Research Laboratory. To assess the criteria EPA uses to
           allocate BEACH Act funds to eligible states, we interviewed
           officials that were involved in developing the funding formula and
           conducted a funding formula simulation to demonstrate how slight
           alterations of the BEACH Act grant funding formula would shift
           funding and potentially affect current allocations.

           To determine how the eight Great Lakes states have used BEACH Act
           funds to develop monitoring and notification programs, we used a
           data collection instrument to gather information from state level
           BEACH Act Administrators from each of the Great Lakes
           states--Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, New York,
           Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. We interviewed an official from Erie
           County, Pennsylvania, where BEACH Act funds are distributed
           directly to the county because this is the only county in the
           state with coastal recreational waters. EPA identified these
           officials as the person(s) responsible for coordinating beach
           monitoring and notification programs for each state and collecting
           and submitting information generated by these programs to EPA.

           In addition, we conducted a survey of the 563 Great Lakes beaches
           EPA identified as having monitoring programs in 2005. To gather
           data representative of the Great Lakes beaches, we conducted a
           random sample of 140 beaches which were selected systematically
           for each state. This ensured that the sample selected was
           proportional to the number of Great Lakes beaches in each of the
           states. Table 7 summarizes sample size and disposition by state.

           Table 7: Great Lakes Beaches Reported Monitored by EPA in 2005,
           GAO Sample, and Sample Disposition by State
		   
                                        Sample                                
State        Total beachesmonitored beaches Respondingbeaches Responserate 
Illinois                         73      19                15          79% 
Indiana                          25       6                 5           83 
Michigan                        214      53                49           92 
Minnesota                        39      10                10          100 
New York                         38       9                 9          100 
Ohio                             47      12                11           92 
Pennsylvania                     12       3                 3          100 
Wisconsin                       115      28                28          100 
Grand total                     563     140               130          93% 

           Source: GAO.

           Information obtained through this survey was used to produce
           estimates of beach monitoring and notification in the 2006 beach
           season at the Great Lakes beaches that conducted monitoring in
           2005. Since our beach sample is only one of a large number of
           samples that we might have drawn, and each sample could have
           provided different estimates, we express our confidence in the
           precision of our particular sample's results as a 95 percent
           confidence interval. This is the interval that would contain the
           actual population value for 95 percent of the samples we could
           have drawn. All proportion estimates from this sample used in this
           report have 95 percent confidence intervals within plus or minus
           10 percentage points, unless otherwise noted.

           Even though we surveyed a random sample of beaches in the Great
           Lakes, the practical difficulties of conducting any survey may
           introduce other types of errors, commonly referred to as
           "nonsampling errors." For example, differences in how a particular
           question is interpreted or the sources of information available to
           respondents can introduce unwanted variability into the survey
           results. We included steps in both the data collection and data
           analysis stages to minimize these nonsampling errors. For example,
           in the research design and data collection stages, we took the
           following steps:

           o We obtained from EPA a list of contacts for beaches with
           monitoring programs in the Great Lakes. We then attempted to
           contact all listed local officials via telephone and asked them to
           tell us if they or someone else would be the most appropriate
           contact and to provide their e-mail address. Some officials
           identified more appropriate survey respondents. In order to obtain
           the appropriate contacts for beaches where we were not able to
           contact the officials using EPA's list, we asked state BEACH Act
           officials for the most appropriate contact and obtained telephone
           and/or e-mail contacts from them.
           o We reviewed EPA's National Health Protection Survey of Beaches.
           o We pretested the survey with officials from four beaches between
           November 13, 2006, and November 27, 2006, and used their feedback
           to refine the survey. These beaches were selected randomly from
           the list of monitored beaches provided by EPA. For these pretests,
           we sent officials a draft of the survey. We then interviewed the
           officials to ensure that (1) questions were clear and unambiguous,
           (2) terms were precise, and (3) data needed to respond to the
           questions were available to the local officials. As a result of
           our pretests, we refined some of the survey questions. A GAO
           survey specialist also independently reviewed the questionnaire.
           o We e-mailed the survey as an attachment on December 5, 2006, to
           local officials at 140 beaches. We asked respondents to return the
           survey by e-mail within 15 working days of receiving our e-mail.
           We sent e-mail reminders and called nonrespondents and accepted
           responses to the surveys through February 2, 2007.

           To minimize nonsampling errors in the data analysis stage, we
           contacted local officials to clarify survey responses, when
           necessary, and used a centralized tracking document to record all
           changes. Changes made in the tracking document were verified
           against the keypunched data to ensure all changes and updates were
           recorded. When changes took place after a survey was keypunched,
           the updates were made in the computer program used to generate
           survey results.

           As summarized in table 7, we received completed questionnaires for
           130 of the 140 sample beaches, for an overall response rate of 93
           percent. We did not receive a completed questionnaire from 10
           beaches. We do not know if the responses for these beaches would
           have differed materially from those for the 130 beaches we did
           receive. From the questionnaires we received, we gathered
           information for each including: (1) the potential sources of
           contamination; (2) water quality standards in place; (3) methods
           of monitoring, including depth and location of samples; (4)
           frequency of monitoring and number of sampling days where water
           quality standards were exceeded; and (5) public notification and
           remediation efforts.

           To determine the effect the BEACH Act has had on Great Lakes beach
           monitoring and the identification of sources of contamination, we
           analyzed the results of our survey and information obtained from
           state BEACH Act Administrators. In addition, we reviewed EPA data
           on the number of beaches identified in the Great Lakes, the number
           of identified beaches being monitored, and the number of monitored
           beaches with health advisories and beach closures. We interviewed
           agency officials regarding a series of data reliability questions
           addressing such areas as data entry, data access, quality control
           procedures, and data accuracy and completeness. We asked follow-up
           questions whenever necessary. We determined that these data were
           sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.

           Finally, we conducted interviews with organizations working on
           Great Lakes issues including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
           Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Geological Survey, the Natural
           Resources Defense Council, the International Joint Commission, the
           Alliance for the Great Lakes, and the Northeast-Midwest Institute
           Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, among others.

           We conducted our work from June 2006 through March 2007 in
           accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
		   
		   Appendix II: Map of 35 States and Territories with Coastal
		   Recreational Waters
		   
           Appendix III: GAO's Calculations for an Alternative BEACH Act Grant
           Distribution Formula

           This appendix describes EPA's BEACH Act grant distribution formula
           and the results of our calculation using an alternative formula
           allocation. Currently, EPA's grant formula allocates about 82
           percent of the grant funds according to beach season and about 9
           percent each to beach use and beach miles. Our simulation reweighs
           the factors used in EPA's formula so that beach season receives a
           weight of about 27 percent, beach use receives a weight of about
           36 percent, and beach miles receive a weight of about 36 percent
           as EPA originally intended. The resulting funding amounts are
           shown for each of the 35 states and territories. Finally, we
           present information on how EPA can alter its formula to minimize
           fluctuations in funding amounts if funding levels increase.
		   
		   EPA's BEACH Act Grant Distribution Formula

           EPA distributes BEACH Act grants to eligible states and
           territories according to a formula that considers the length of
           the beach season, beach use, and beach miles. EPA intended that
           the beach season length factor would provide the base funding and
           would be augmented by the beach use and beach miles factors. EPA
           established a series of fixed amounts that correspond to states'
           varying lengths of beach season to cover the general expenses
           associated with a beach monitoring program. For example, EPA
           estimated that a 3-month beach season would require states to fund
           salaries for two employees, which would cost approximately
           $150,000, while states with beach seasons greater than 6-months
           would require $300,000. The eight Great Lakes states are all
           classified as having 3 to 4 months of beach season, as shown in
           table 8.
		   
		   

Table 8: EPA Beach Season Length Factor and States Associated Funding
Levels

State                                             Beach season Base amount 
Alaska                                            ^a           $150,000    
Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maine,  3-4 months   $200,000    
Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New                          
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon,                             
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington,                          
Wisconsin                                                                  
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North   5-6 months   $250,000    
Carolina, South Carolina                                                   
American Samoa, California, Florida, Guam,        >6 months    $300,000    
Hawaii, Northern Mariana, Puerto Rico, Texas,                              
U.S. Virgin Islands                                                        

Source: EPA.

^aStates and territories with seasons of less than 3 months receive
season-based funding only.

Once the allotments for beach season length are distributed, EPA
determined that 50 percent of the remaining funds would be distributed to
states according to beach use, and the other 50 percent would be
distributed according to states' beach miles. Because consistent data
across states on beach usage are not available, EPA uses coastal
population of counties as a surrogate for beach use. Similarly, EPA
currently does not have beach mileage data in a format that can be used
for the allocation formula and, therefore, uses shoreline miles as a
surrogate for beach miles.^1

EPA developed this formula with the expectation that BEACH Act grants
would be allocated funding at their authorized level of $30 million
annually. Using this authorized amount and EPA's distribution formula $30
million and using this distribution formula, each factor would have
received approximately equal weight, with beach season accounting for
about 27 percent of each state or territory's grant, and the remainder
equally divided between the two other factors--beach use (36 percent) and
beach miles (36 percent) as shown in table 9.

Table 9: EPA's Formula for Distributing $30 Million in BEACH Act Grants

Factor              Allocation                                             
Beach season length 27% of total annual BEACH Act funds, or $8 million,    
                       distributed as follows:                                
                                                                              
                       < 3 months: $150,000^a                                 
                                                                              
                       3-4 months: $200,000                                   
                                                                              
                       5-6 months: $250,000                                   
                                                                              
                       >6 months: $300,000                                    
Shoreline miles     36% of total annual BEACH Act funds, or $11 million    
Coastal population  36% of total annual BEACH Act funds, or $11 million    

Sources: EPA and GAO.

^aStates and territories with seasons of less than 3 months receive
season-based funding only.

However, since 2002, funding levels for BEACH Act grants have been about
$10 million each year. Given the lower than anticipated funding levels,
once the approximately $8 million (which now accounts for 82 percent of
the total grant funding) was allocated in accordance with each state's
beach season, this left only about $1.85 million or about 18 percent of
the total funding to be divided equally (about $1 million or 9 percent
each) between the beach use and beach miles factors, as shown in table 10.

^1The estimate of shoreline miles are taken from NOAA's The Coastline of
the United States. Population estimates are taken from the 2000 Census.

Table 10: EPA's Formula for Distributing $10 Million in BEACH Act Grants

Factor              Allocation                                            
Beach season length < 3 months: $150,000^a                                
                                                                             
                       3-4 months: $200,000                                  
                                                                             
                       5-6 months: $250,000                                  
                                                                             
                       >6 months: $300,000                                   
Shoreline miles     50% of remaining $1.85 million funds, or $.92 million 
Coastal population  50% of remaining $1.85 million funds, or $.92 million 

Sources: EPA and GAO.

^aStates and territories with seasons of less than 3 months receive
season-based funding only.

Because the beach season factor accounts for a much larger proportion of
each state's BEACH Act grant as compared with beach miles or beach use,
BEACH Act grant amounts may vary little between states that have widely
varied shorelines or coastal populations, as shown in table 11.

Table 11: Factors Used in BEACH Act Formula Allocations and Resulting 2006
Grants by State and Territory

               Beach                                    Coastal                 Grant 
              season    Minimum Shoreline Shoreline  population Population allocation 
State         length allocation     miles     ratio      (2000)      ratio    in 2006 
Alabama            6   $250,000       607    0.0099     540,258     0.0044   $262,170 
Alaska             2    150,000    33,904    0.0000     538,258     0.0000    150,000 
American                                                                              
Samoa             12    300,000       126    0.0020      57,291     0.0005    302,140 
California        12    300,000     3,427    0.0557  24,260,099     0.1991    516,960 
Connecticut        4    200,000       618    0.0100   2,120,734     0.0174    223,370 
Delaware           4    200,000       381    0.0062     783,600     0.0064    210,750 
Florida           12    300,000     8,436    0.1371  15,982,378     0.1311    528,410 
Georgia            6    250,000     2,344    0.0381     538,469     0.0044    286,200 
Guam              12    300,000       110    0.0018     154,805     0.0013    302,600 
Hawaii            12    300,000     1,052    0.0171   1,211,537     0.0099    323,020 
Illinois           4    200,000        63    0.0010   6,021,097     0.0494    242,940 
Indiana            4    200,000        45    0.0007     741,468     0.0061    205,800 
Louisiana          6    250,000     7,721    0.1255   2,170,717     0.0178    322,010 
Maine              4    200,000     3,478    0.0565     944,847     0.0078    254,730 
Maryland           4    200,000     3,190    0.0518   3,592,430     0.0295    269,250 
Massachusetts      4    200,000     1,519    0.0247   4,783,167     0.0392    254,440 
Michigan           4    200,000     3,224    0.0524   4,842,023     0.0397    278,450 
Minnesota          4    200,000       189    0.0031     236,946     0.0019    204,270 
Mississippi        6    250,000       359    0.0058     363,988     0.0030    257,510 
New Hampshire      4    200,000       131    0.0021     389,592     0.0032    204,530 
New Jersey         4    200,000     1,792    0.0291   7,575,546     0.0622    277,730 
New York           4    200,000     2,625    0.0427  16,088,089     0.1320    348,740 
North                                                                                 
Carolina           6    250,000     3,375    0.0548     826,019     0.0068    302,480 
Northern                                                                              
Mariana                                                                               
Islands           12    300,000       206    0.0033      69,221     0.0006    303,330 
Ohio               4    200,000       312    0.0051   2,767,328     0.0227    223,650 
Oregon             4    200,000     1,410    0.0229   1,326,072     0.0109    228,780 
Pennsylvania       4    200,000       140    0.0023   2,946,892     0.0242    222,530 
Puerto Rico       12    300,000       700    0.0114   2,685,883     0.0220    328,450 
Rhode Island       4    200,000       384    0.0062   1,048,319     0.0086    212,640 
South                                                                                 
Carolina           6    250,000     2,876    0.0467     981,338     0.0081    296,660 
Texas             12    300,000     3,359    0.0546   5,211,014     0.0428    382,890 
Virgin                                                                                
Islands           12    300,000       175    0.0028     108,612     0.0009    303,180 
Virginia           4    200,000     3,315    0.0539   4,440,709     0.0364    276,900 
Washington         4    200,000     3,026    0.0492   4,070,515     0.0334    270,320 
Wisconsin          4    200,000       820    0.0133   1,992,393     0.0163    225,270 
Total            220 $8,150,000    61,535    1.0000 121,873,396     1.0000 $9,803,100 

Sources: EPA and GAO.

Note: The totals exclude shoreline miles and coastal population for Alaska
because Alaska beach season is less than 3 months.

As a result, states and territories with 12-month beach seasons may
receive larger BEACH Act grants than states with much longer shorelines.
For example, shoreline miles in the Great Lakes states range from 63 miles
in Illinois to 3,224 in Michigan; therefore, Michigan may need to monitor
50 times as many shoreline miles as Illinois. However, because the beach
miles factor accounts for a much smaller portion of each state's BEACH Act
grant than beach season, the BEACH Act grant amount distributed to
Michigan is only 35 percent more than that for Indiana ($278,450 and
$205,800, respectively).

Because of the way in which the current formula allocates funding, states
and territories with 12-month beach seasons may also receive larger BEACH
Act grants than more populous states. For example, in general, EPA's grant
distribution formula gives territories an advantage over the states,
because they tend to be in warmer climates with longer beach seasons.
Territories receive an average of $309,000 each year, while states receive
an annual average of $294,000. The Great Lakes states, with their
comparatively short beach seasons, receive an annual average of $248,000.
Similarly, states with larger populations are currently at a disadvantage
to the territories that have a longer beach season but significantly
smaller coastal populations. For example Guam and American Samoa, with
coastal populations of less than 200,000 each, receive larger grants than
Maryland and Virginia, with coastal populations of 3.6 and 4.4 million,
respectively. However, if greater weights were assigned to coastal
populations, Maryland and Virginia would see an increase in their grant
allocation.

Simulations of Alternative BEACH Act Distribution Formulas

We calculated the distribution of $10 million in annual BEACH Act grants
according to an alternative formula that weights each of the factors
equally (27 percent for beach season, 36 percent for beach use, and 36
percent for beach miles) in accordance with the weights that EPA had built
into its formula when it anticipated that $30 million would be available
in annual funding levels. For the purposes of our calculation, we reduced
the total amount available to be allocated to beach season length from 82
to 27.2 percent of the current $10 million funding levels. Given this
simulation, the total amount allocated on the basis of beach season length
falls from $8.15 million to roughly $2.72 million, and the proportion
allocated to beach use and beach miles increases to $3.65 million (or 36.4
percent) each.

Under this alternative formula, Alabama's total allocation, for example,
would decrease by 48.6 percent, from $263,225 to $135,399, and its share
of funding that is based on the length of the beach season would fall from
$250,000 to $83,333. Table 12 shows how each state and territory's
allocations would differ if EPA applied the percentages it built into its
formula when it anticipated $30 million in funding compared with the
current $10 million.

Table 12: Difference in Allocations Using Current and Alternative Formulas

                                                             Difference             
                                                                between             
                BEACH Act              27.2% of   Estimated  actual and  Difference 
                    grant     Amount     amount   BEACH Act   estimated     between 
               allocation   based on   based on grant under allocations  actual and 
States and         of $10      beach      beach   simulated         (in   estimated 
territories       million     season     season     formula    dollars) allocations 
Alabama          $263,225   $250,000    $83,333    $135,399   -$127,826      -48.6% 
Alaska            150,000    150,000     50,000      50,000    -100,000       -66.7 
American                                                                            
Samoa             302,329    300,000    100,000     109,169    -193,160       -63.9 
California        535,645    300,000    100,000   1,027,721     492,076        91.9 
Connecticut       225,386    200,000     66,667     166,609     -58,777       -26.1 
Delaware          211,675    200,000     66,667     112,629     -99,046       -46.8 
Florida           548,115    300,000    100,000   1,076,811     528,696        96.5 
Georgia           289,322    250,000     83,333     238,142     -51,180       -17.7 
Guam              302,828    300,000    100,000     111,136    -191,692       -63.3 
Hawaii            325,009    300,000    100,000     198,459    -126,550       -38.9 
Illinois          246,646    200,000     66,667     250,310       3,664         1.5 
Indiana           206,304    200,000     66,667      91,485    -114,819       -55.7 
Louisiana         382,538    250,000     83,333     605,128     222,590        58.2 
Maine             259,453    200,000     66,667     300,729      41,276        15.9 
Maryland          275,218    200,000     66,667     362,797      87,579        31.8 
Massachusetts     259,137    200,000     66,667     299,486      40,349        15.6 
Michigan          285,214    200,000     66,667     402,148     116,934        41.0 
Minnesota         204,639    200,000     66,667      84,932    -119,707       -58.5 
Mississippi       258,159    250,000     83,333     115,455    -142,704       -55.3 
New Hampshire     204,926    200,000     66,667      86,061    -118,865       -58.0 
New Jersey        284,435    200,000     66,667     399,081     114,646        40.3 
New York          361,565    200,000     66,667     702,739     341,174        94.4 
North                                                                               
Carolina          307,003    250,000     83,333     307,749         746         0.2 
Northern                                                                            
Mariana                                                                             
Islands           303,622    300,000    100,000     114,260    -189,362       -62.4 
Ohio              225,694    200,000     66,667     167,821     -57,873       -25.6 
Oregon            231,260    200,000     66,667     189,735     -41,525       -18.0 
Pennsylvania      224,471    200,000     66,667     163,007     -61,464       -27.4 
Puerto Rico       330,908    300,000    100,000     221,682    -109,226       -33.0 
Rhode Island      213,729    200,000     66,667     120,716     -93,013       -43.5 
South                                                                               
Carolina          300,681    250,000     83,333     282,859     -17,822        -5.9 
Texas             390,044    300,000    100,000     454,496      64,452        16.5 
Virgin                                                                              
Islands           303,455    300,000    100,000     113,602    -189,853       -62.6 
Virginia          283,536    200,000     66,667    $395,541     112,005        39.5 
Washington        276,382    200,000     66,667    $367,377      90,995        32.9 
Wisconsin         227,448    200,000     66,667    $174,729     -52,719       -23.2 
Total         $10,000,001 $8,150,000 $2,716,667 $10,000,000         -$1        0.0% 

Source: GAO.

Note: Differences noted are due to rounding.

By simulating the distribution of BEACH Act grants given the more equally
weighted percentages EPA built into its original formula, states with
large populations, such as Florida, California, and New York would receive
almost twice as much grant funding as their current allocations. However,
this increase would come at the expense of states such as Alabama and
Indiana, and territories such as Puerto Rico, which would receive as
little as half of their current allocations. California's allocation, for
example, would increase by 92 percent, while Indiana's allocation would
decrease by 56 percent. It is important to recognize that such large
swings in allocations could make it difficult for states that have come to
depend on BEACH Act funding over the last 6 years to continue to monitor
their beaches. EPA could consider using a hold-harmless provision to
minimize states' potential loss of large portions of their BEACH Act
grants. The hold-harmless provision would ensure that the current grantees
would maintain, at a minimum, their previous year's allocation, while any
additional funding would be allocated to those states with longer
shorelines and larger populations.

Appendix IV: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Anu K. Mittal, (202) 512-3841, [email protected]

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the individual named above, Edward Zadjura, Assistant
Director; Eric Bachhuber; Joanna Chan; Robert Dinkelmeyer; Greg Dybalski;
Heather Holsinger; DuEwa Kamara; Matt Michaels; Omari Norman; Alison
O'Neill; Mark Ramage; and Walter Vance made key contributions to this
report. Also contributing to the report were Kim Raheb, Jena Sinkfield,
and John Wanska.

(360688)

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Highlights of GAO-07-591, a report to Congressional Requesters

May 2007

GREAT LAKES

EPA and States Have Made Progress in Implementing the BEACH Act, but
Additional Actions Could Improve Public Health Protection

Waterborne pathogens can contaminate water and sand at beaches and
threaten human health. Under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and
Coastal Health (BEACH) Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
developed limits on pathogens that states use to assess beach water
quality. EPA can also provide grants to states to develop water quality
monitoring and public notification programs.

GAO was asked to assess (1) the extent to which EPA implemented the BEACH
Act including how it allocated grants to the states, (2) the monitoring
and notification programs developed by Great Lakes states, and (3) the
effect of the BEACH Act on water quality monitoring and contamination at
Great Lakes beaches.

[34]What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that EPA distribute grant funds in a way that reflects
states' monitoring needs and help states improve the consistency of their
monitoring and notification activities. In addition, Congress should
consider providing EPA more flexibility to allow states to use BEACH Act
grants to investigate and remediate contamination sources.

EPA generally agreed with GAO's recommendations but stated that states may
resist making substantial changes to the funding formula because of their
tight budgets.

EPA has taken steps to implement most of the provisions of the BEACH Act
but has missed statutory deadlines for two critical requirements. While
EPA has developed a national list of beaches and improved the uniformity
of state water quality standards, it has not (1) completed the pathogen
and human health studies required by 2003 or (2) published the new or
revised water quality criteria for pathogens required by 2005. Moreover,
the formula EPA has used to distribute approximately $51 million in BEACH
Act grants from 2001-2006 does not accurately reflect the monitoring needs
of the states. This is because the formula emphasizes the length of the
beach season more than the other factors--beach miles and beach use. These
other factors vary widely among the states, can greatly influence the
amount of monitoring a state needs to undertake, and can increase the
public health risk.

All eight Great Lakes states have used BEACH Act grants to develop beach
monitoring and public notification programs. However, because these
programs vary among the states they may not provide consistent levels of
public health protection within and across Great Lakes beaches. For
example, GAO found that the states' monitoring and notification programs
varied considerably in the frequency with which beaches were monitored,
the monitoring methods used, and how the public was notified of potential
health risks. For example, some states monitor their high-priority beaches
as little as one or two times per week, while others monitor their
high-priority beaches daily. In addition, when local officials review
similar water quality results, some may choose to only issue a health
advisory while others may choose to close the beach. According to state
and local officials, these inconsistencies are in part due to the lack of
adequate funding for their beach monitoring and notification programs.

The frequency of water quality monitoring has increased at Great Lakes
beaches since the passage of the BEACH Act, helping states and localities
to identify the scope of contamination. However, in most cases, the
underlying causes of contamination remain unknown and unaddressed. This is
because some state and local officials reported that they do not have the
funds to investigate the source of the contamination or take actions to
mitigate the problem, and EPA has concluded that BEACH Act grants
generally may not be used for these purposes. For example, local officials
at 67 percent of Great Lakes beaches reported that, when results of water
quality testing indicated contamination at levels exceeding the applicable
standards during the 2006 beach season, they did not know the source of
the contamination, and only 14 percent reported that they had taken
actions to address the sources of contamination. State and local officials
indicated that an overall improvement in water quality throughout the
Great Lakes will require long-term collaborative efforts to address the
underlying causes of contamination, as well as increased funding.

*** End of document. ***