Local environmental groups are planning to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to amend water-quality criteria and require daily testing of coastal recreation waters.
Clean Ocean Action and the NY/NJ Baykeeper on June 20 filed a notice of intent to sue the EPA in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Five other environmental organizations also joined in the suit.
The notice states that water-quality standards adopted in 2012 by the EPA are based on a monthly average and fail to address health threats that beachgoers face with water pollution.
“This is about changing the nationwide federal-level momentum on protecting swimmer safety and beachgoer safety,” said Sean Dixon, a coastal policy attorney for Clean Ocean Action, which is based at Sandy Hook.
Under the 2000 Beach Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act, the EPA is required to amend federal waterpollution control standards to improve the quality of coastal recreation waters and for other purposes, according to Chris Len, attorney for the Keyport-based NY/NJ Baykeeper and the Hacksensack Riverkeeper.
“The recreation water-quality criteria are an example that EPA uses, upon which states can base decisions on water quality standards. This is EPA’s example of how clean water should be to protect people’s health,” Len said.
Len explained that water-quality standards are based on a monthly average of testing.
“You can’t do anything to protect public health if it doesn’t have a daily standard, because you only ever swim on the day that you go swimming,” Len said, adding that the group is asking the EPA to adopt a daily water-quality standard.
“If they [tested] on June 2 and it was over the standard, then that would be a violation. Then, the people who are putting the pollution in the water would be in violation and the public would be notified. You don’t wait until July to talk about what happened in the month of June.”
The EPA issued a statement on June 21 indicating that its recommended recreational water-quality criteria for states “help protect people’s health during visits to beaches and waters year-round.”
Other groups joining the legal action include Heal the Bay, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Riverkeeper and the Waterkeeper Alliance.
The groups argue that the EPA’s new criteria also fail to address the risk of nongastrointestinal illnesses that result from exposure to contaminated waters. These include rash, dysentery, hepatitis, respiratory illness and more.
The criteria also permit a level of risk that would result in 36 of every 1,000 beachgoers becoming ill, he said.
“There are estimates of millions and millions of people that become ill from pollution of waters. These criteria don’t address these illnesses,” Dixon stated.
Len said the legal action would ask the EPA to justify how the fact that 36 of every 1,000 beachgoers become ill represents a reasonable risk. The suit would also ask the EPA to include nongastrointestinal illnesses in the criteria.
“It just seems to me that the EPA did not take seriously the mandate to protect public health,” Len said.
“They made a rule that explicitly was designed to perpetuate the rule that they were using all along.”
However, the EPA stated that the criteria is based on scientific data and provides information for a broad range of health-related issues.
“The science-based criteria provide information to help states improve public health protection by addressing a broader range of illness symptoms, better accounting for pollution after heavy rainfall, providing more protective recommendations for coastal waters, encouraging early alerts to beachgoers, and promoting rapid water testing,” the agency said. Water pollution is a major concern in New Jersey, where major bodies of water have become sources of contamination from improperly treated sewage, animal waste and contaminated storm water runoff, he said.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council’s “Testing the Waters: A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches,” there were 132 beach-closing and beach-advisory days at New Jersey beaches in 2011, an increase from 109 in 2010.
Of those closings, 23, or 17 percent, of closing/advisory days were due to elevated bacteria levels; 5 percent were due to advisories issued for a sewage spill or overflowing manhole; and 79 percent were preemptive, due to rainfall and known problems with bacteria levels.
Of the 226 ocean and bay beaches that were tested, 3 percent of samples exceeded the standard, an increase from 2 percent in 2010.
New Jersey beaches and local waterways are monitored through a collaboration of the DEP and county and local entities, Dixon said, adding that the federal criteria are only the first step to addressing pollution.
“As of right now, there isn’t a lot of money to hold people accountable if a sample comes back negative,” he said.
“There may be beach closures during the week if the samples come back negative, but those pollution sources are still not discovered, they are not tracked down, and [the beaches] are not closed.”
Federal criteria must be amended to protect beachgoers, he said.
“There are a lot of steps that need to occur to actually protect public health, and these criteria wouldn’t do it,” Dixon said.
“These criteria are applied nationwide, so we are fighting for swimmer safety in New Jersey and we are teaming with people in California. Everyone in the country is working on this right now.”