Beaches are meant to make us feel relaxed. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks take us away from the stress of the normal routine. But a new damning report has warned about beaches getting contaminated and the factors making them filthy. The report by advocacy group Environment America has claimed that more than half of the beaches it surveyed in the US had “faecal contamination” at potentially unsafe levels. The report was released on July 5 and published on the group’s website.
Environment America said that it tested 3,192 beaches out of which 1,761 (55 per cent) beaches saw at least one day of unsafe levels of contamination, surpassing the safety level set by country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for beaches.
The report said that 363 beaches, translating to one out of every nine beaches tested across the US, had potentially unsafe levels of faecal contamination on at least 25 per cent of the days on which testing took place.
The Gulf Coast had the highest percentage (84%) of beaches that were unsafe for at least one day in 2022, the report said. This was followed by the West Coast (70%) and the Great Lakes (63%).
In New York, 58 per cent of the 344 beaches the agency tested had potentially unsafe levels of faecal indicator bacteria on at least one day. Environment America added that 12% of beaches were found to be unsafe on more than 25% of all days tested in 2022.
The agency also explained how beach pollution threatens the health of the people. The report said that swimming in contaminated water can cause gastrointestinal illness as well as respiratory disease, ear and eye infection and skin rash.
Environment America said that an estimated 57 million cases of illness in the US resulting from swimming in oceans, lakes, rivers and ponds.