The EPA’s Role in Protecting Beaches
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency works in partnership with states, Tribes, territories, local governments and the public to protect beaches.
The EPA protects beaches in the following areas:
Monitoring Beach Waters
State, territorial, Tribal and local health and environmental protection agencies
Across the country, these agencies are responsible for monitoring the quality of water at coastal and Great Lakes beaches and posting advisories or closing beaches when fecal indicator bacteria in the water are too high. However, some of these agencies do not have enough resources to monitor all of their beach waters.
Beach Advisory and Closing Online Notification (BEACON) System
BEACON is a source of longer-term data about beach water quality. The EPA created BEACON to meet the agency's requirement to provide the public with a database of pollution occurrences for coastal recreation waters. BEACON contains annual state-reported beach monitoring and notification data and is available online.
Laws that Protect Beaches and Oceans
The EPA implements laws that regulate sources of water pollution to our coastal beaches and ocean water.
Programs to Protect Beaches
The EPA has several programs that regulate sources of water pollution to our coastal beaches. To learn more about these programs, use the links.
BEACH Act Program
After the BEACH Act was signed into law, the EPA expanded the focus of its efforts to improve the quality of coastal recreation waters and protect the health of beachgoers. To meet these goals, the EPA is addressing the objectives:
- Reflect updated science
- Incorporate recommendations from the 2012 Recreational Water Quality Criteria
- Encourage a more comprehensive approach to developing a tiered monitoring and notification system
- Use internet and social media tools for beach notifications and information
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit Program
The NPDES program is authorized by the Clean Water Act and controls water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the United States.
Pollution Budgeting (TMDL) Program
The TMDL program, under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, requires states, territories, and authorized tribes to develop lists of impaired waters, establish priority rankings for waters, and develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs). TMDLs related to beaches include pathogens, nutrients, and trash.
Trash-Free Waters Program
The Trash-Free Waters program aims to reduce marine debris resulting from land-based and ocean-based sources.
Enforcement
The EPA plays an important role in enforcing our nation's environmental laws to protect our nation's recreational beaches and the health of those who use them.
CWA Compliance Monitoring
The CWA Compliance Monitoring program works to protect human health and the environment by ensuring that the regulated community obeys environmental laws and regulations.
CWA Compliance Assistance
The Clean Water Act Compliance Assistance program provides businesses, colleges and universities, federal facilities, local governments, and Tribes with tools to help meet environmental regulatory requirements.
Water Enforcement
The Water Enforcement program provides additional information on the EPA’s role in cleaning up water pollution.
Science and Technology
The EPA is developing tools to better measure, identify, and address microbes in recreational waters and to better understand how these pollutants affect people’s health. The EPA also creates national criteria for indicators of fecal bacteria and toxins produced by harmful algal blooms and works with states, territories, and Tribes on adopting protections for their waterbodies.
Technical Resources for Beaches
The Technical Resources for Beach Monitoring and Notification Programs page helps state and local officials to monitor beach health and make decisions about when to restrict access to or close beaches due to unsafe environmental conditions.
Recreational Water Quality Criteria
The Recreational Water Quality Criteria and Methods page describes the criteria that the EPA has developed for enterococci, E. coli, and cyanotoxins and developing work on criteria for coliphages.
Review of Recreational Water Quality Criteria
The review of recreational water quality criteria includes a detailed assessment of the state of the science and advances made since the criteria for enterococci and E. coli were developed.
Funding
Several of the EPA's programs provide grant funding to address clean water at the nation's recreational beaches.
BEACH Act Grants
The BEACH Act grants program provides grants to states, territories, Tribes and local governments to protect beachgoers from contaminated water at coastal beaches including the Great Lakes. Grant funds are used to develop and implement beach monitoring and notification programs.
Clean Water Act Section 319 Grants
This CWA Section 319 grants program provides states, territories and Tribes with funding for a wide variety of activities including technical assistance, financial assistance, education, training, technology transfer, demonstration projects, and monitoring to assess the success of specific nonpoint source implementation projects.
Clean Water Act Section 106 Grants
The CWA Section 106 grants program provides federal assistance to states (including territories, the District of Columbia and eligible Tribes) and interstate agencies to establish and implement ongoing water pollution control programs.
Education
In addition to helping measure pollution in water near beaches, the EPA helps states, Tribes, territories and local governments inform people on the threats to beaches and opportunities to protect them.
The EPA is improving public access to information about the quality of the water at beaches and health risks associated with swimming in polluted water. The EPA maintains a searchable system called BEACON that contains all of the data that states, territories and Tribes have submitted as a condition of their BEACH Act grants. This includes information about each beach, water quality monitoring results and details about every advisory and closure.
In addition, the EPA releases Annual Swimming Season reports that contain national-level statistics of beach closings and advisories and trends over several years.