Environmental Group Zaps Beaches

By JOHN CURRAN

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Six states that don't regularly monitor water quality and don't tell the public about pollution problems were named ``beach bums'' by an environmental group.

Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Puerto Rico got low marks in the Natural Resources Defense Council's annual ``Testing the Water'' survey.

Rated tops in both categories were the beaches of Half Moon Bay, Calif.; Rehoboth Beach, Del.; Wellfleet, Mass.; Cape May, N.J.; Cape Hatteras, N.C.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; and Indiana Dunes Lakeshore, near Gary, Ind., the group said.

Beach closings skyrocketed last year as pollution and high bacteria counts continued to contaminate the nation's recreational waterways, the group said Tuesday.

There were 5,199 beach closings and pollution advisories on ocean, lake, river and bay beaches in 1997, more than twice as many as reported in 1996 (2,596), the group said.

The inclusion of some freshwater beaches that were not part of the survey last year makes the year-to-year comparison misleading, as did the inclusion of data from Guam, which was not included in the group's 1996 survey.

In addition, increased monitoring led to more closings.

Still, elevated bacteria counts caused by human and animal waste carried into the ocean via stormwater runoff, sewage spills, septic systems and boating waste is spoiling water quality, the group said.

Disease-carrying microorganisms in water can lead to gastroenteritis, dysentery, hepatitis, respiratory problems and ear, nose and throat ailments in swimmers and bathers.

``It could be more monitoring. It could be that it was wetter, because the more rain there is, the more pollution is carried into the ocean,'' said Sarah Chasis, senior attorney with the 400,000-member non-profit environmental organization, which has issued the survey for eight consecutive years.

``We're not going to say pollution's getting worse. That's not our message.

But we will say there are a large number of closings and advisories, and that reflects the fact that pollution continues to be a real problem,'' she said.

The survey, which covered 29 coastal and Great Lakes states and three U.S.

territories, was conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Defense Council. It relied on information provided by local and state governments, which Chasis acknowledged could be flawed.

``If we could send our little troops around to check, we'd love to, but we don't have those resources,'' Chasis said.

Among the other findings:

Myrtle Beach and other South Carolina beach towns have instituted monitoring programs, as have Santa Barbara, Calif.; Key West, Fla.; and Miami Beach - all of which were fingered as ``beach bums'' in previous surveys.

Only eight states do comprehensive monitoring of water quality at beaches and notify the public of pollution problems: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina and Ohio.

States that reap the tourism benefits of beaches should dedicate a portion of the money generated by them to water monitoring.

New Jersey, which has battled the stigma of pollution since the 1980s, when syringes and medical waste were washing up on shores, got high marks for its efforts to clean up the ocean.

It is the only state with a mandatory statewide program that includes a bacteria standard, a testing protocol and mandatory closing when bacteria counts exceed the standard, the group said.

In 1997, 42 beach closings and pollution advisories were issued, compared with 87 the previous year.

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