2007 Swimming Season Update

Features

Oregon

July 2008

Introduction
2007 Summary Results
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Introduction

Figure 1. Oregon coastal counties with 2007 monitored beach data.

The BEACH Act of 2000 requires that coastal and Great Lakes states and territories report to EPA on beach monitoring and notification data for their coast recreation waters. The 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.

This fact sheet summarizes beach monitoring and notification data submitted to EPA by the state of Oregon for the 2007 swimming season.

Between May and September each year, the Oregon Beach Monitoring Program (OBMP) helps protect people who play in coastal waters that are designated for swimming, bathing, surfing, and similar water contact activities.

During the 2007 swimming season, the OBMP monitored 71 sampling sites at 20 recreational beaches along the Oregon coast. Ocean water is sampled either once a week or every two weeks. The beach program works with other state agencies to collect and test water samples, and when bacteria levels exceed the state standard of 158 enterococci organisms per 100mL of ocean water sampled a water contact advisory is issued.

Oregon uses various methods for notifying the public about water contact advisories, including media releases, phone calls to city and county officials, email notification to local governments and interested stakeholders, statewide advisory hotline, signage at beach access points, posting information on the program Web site, and a Web site link to the Earth911 Web site where advisory information is also posted.

The OBMP works with the Oregon Coastal Atlas to share and display beach water quality monitoring data on the Web. The Atlas is a collaborative project of the Oregon Ocean-Coastal Management Program, and is considered one of the Nation's most useful and comprehensive information sources about a State shoreline. View recent and historic beach sampling data at the Atlas.

Table 1. Breakdown of monitored and unmonitored coastal beaches by county.
County	Total Beaches	Monitored	Not Monitored
Clatsop	7	3	4
Coos	3	2	1
Curry	13	3	10
Douglas	1	0	1
Lane	4	0	4
Lincoln	18	6	12
Tillamook	13	6	7
Totals	59	20	39

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2007 Summary Results

How many notification actions were reported and how long were they?

Figure 2: Beach notification actions by duration.

Oregon's approach is to issue a beach advisory when water quality standards are exceeded at a particular beach that warns people to avoid contact with the ocean water. A total of 14 monitored beaches had at least one advisory issued during the 2007 swimming season. About 67 percent of Oregon's 30 notification actions lasted two days or less. Figure 2 presents a full breakdown of notification action durations.

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What percentage of days were beaches under a notification action?

Figure 3: Beach days with and without notification actions in 2007.

For Oregon's 2007 swimming season, actions were reported about 4 percent of the time (Figure 3).

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How do 2007 results compare to previous years?

Table 2 compares 2007 notification action data with monitored beach data from previous years.

Table 2. Beach notification actions, 2005–2007.
Year	2005	2006	2007
Number of monitored beaches	20	20	20
Number of beaches affected by notification actions	11	8	14
Percentage of beaches affected by notification actions	55%	40%	70%
Percentage of beach days affected by notification actions	4%	1%	4%