Beach cleaning equipment run by volunteers is at work at the Bay City State Recreation Area on Saginaw Bay. Battle Escalates to Keep Bay City State Park Beaches Clean for Swimmers
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How do you keep a beach clean for swimmers?
That is a problem a local group has been grappling with for many years.
Raking, scooping up muck, using mechanical groomers, extending docks into the water -- all are ideas that have been tried to make the beach user friendly.
The Michigan House of Representatives last week adopted a resolution sponsored by State Representative Jeff Mayes (D-Bay City) calling on the U.S. Congress to increase the funding available to monitor water quality at Michigan beaches, a key protection for the health and safety of Michigan residents and tens of thousands of tourism jobs.
"As the summer tourism season gets into full swing, millions of Michigan and out-of-state residents will flock to our wonderful beaches to enjoy the sun, sand and surf," Mayes said.
"Protecting these resources is vital to preserving our state's multi-billion dollar tourism industry and the tens of thousands of jobs that rely on them. The BEACH Act is part of a comprehensive effort that will keep beach-goers safe and ensure that Michigan remains a prime vacation destination."
The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act, passed in 2000, provides funding to assist state and local programs to monitor water quality at coastal beaches and to notify the public of potential problems. This allows investigators to detect pollution sources and speed up the cleanup of beaches while protecting public health.
However, Congress has appropriated only $10 million for the program, despite an authorization of up to $30 million. Because of this lack of funding, only 57 percent of beaches nationally are monitored for water quality, and usually only on a weekly basis.
In July 2009, the U.S. House passed legislation that would reauthorize the BEACH Act and increase the annual grant levels from $30 million to $40 million. The Senate has yet to take action.
Tourism provides more than 193,000 jobs for Michigan residents and contributes more than $18 billion annually into Michigan's economy.
"This federal support is vital to protecting Michigan jobs and Michigan tourism," Mayes said. "We need to do everything we can to support our Great Lakes and the thousands of miles of pristine coastline that makes Michigan such a special place to live. I hope that today's bipartisan support of this resolution shows Washington that despite our political differences, we are united in protecting this defining part of our heritage."
Meanwhile, grants are being sought for increased control of hog and cattle manure, potential cause of the beach muck here, according to Huron County officials.
Some ideas also are coming from Chicago, which is using a sort of "sand Zamboni" to clean the beaches and employing border collies to help keep seagulls away from swimming areas.
And, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is at work with a federal grant to improve ways to monitor the quality of the beaches.
As the Save Our Shoreline group battles to keep the 1,200 foot long beach at the Bay City State Recreation Area clean for swimmers, basic monitoring problems remain.
The trouble with most methods of water sampling is that results aren't known until the next day.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Geological Survey are pioneering research off Chicago's beaches, using DNA analysis to test for bacteria, that will one day shorten the lab work to a couple of hours, allowing for almost instantaneous water monitoring, said Richard Whitman, a USGS ecologist.
"The results we've been living with are yesterday's numbers, and that's not always good enough," Whitman said. "We know water conditions can change pretty quickly."
This month, Whitman and other scientists dumped red dye into the water a half-mile off 63rd Street Beach, one of the most problematic waterfronts in the city, to track the speed and direction of lake currents in the hopes of better understanding how bacteria builds up along the shoreline.
Thanks to EPA funding, the scientists have developed computer models that can calculate weather data, wave height, wind direction, rainfall and other measurements to project when and where bacteria counts will rise to unsafe levels.
This software, launched in Lake County in 2005, has revolutionized beach research. Instead of having to wait 18 or 20 hours to issue a swimming alert to beach-goers, predictive modeling can anticipate unsafe swimming conditions.
"It's keeping people out of the water when they should be, and not a day after the testing is done," said Mike Adam, a senior biologist for Lake County, which oversees 15 public beaches along the lakefront and several dozen inland beaches. "E. coli levels can change dramatically just between morning and afternoon tests. Imagine how much they change a day later."
Officials in Chicago and Evanston are now compiling data that will enable them to use predictive modeling in a year or two. It is a step toward the ultimate goal of being able to predict high bacteria levels days in advance, Whitman said.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful to know on Friday what the water conditions will be like at your favorite beach on Saturday or Sunday?" Whitman asked. "That's where we want to be."
Until that day arrives, the best defense of our beaches involves a mix of high- and low-tech solutions, Breitenbach said.
Last year the Chicago Park District debuted a specially crafted titanium rake with four-inch teeth capable of turning over deeper layers of sand, reducing bacteria by exposing it to UV light and oxygen. Think of it as a sand Zamboni that refreshes Chicago's beaches each morning.
This spring, the Chicago Park District board unanimously passed an ordinance banning the feeding of birds and wildlife along city beaches. The ordinance is designed to reduce the number of gulls, particularly the most common ring-billed gulls, that congregate and defecate on the sand, Breitenbach said.
And once again this summer, the park district plans to station rescued border collies and their handlers on a few of the city's beaches to disrupt gulls when they try to land. The dogs have proven to be a simple, effective and popular answer to the bird problem, Breitenbach said, and is about as low-tech as it gets.
"They stay in the open areas and try to prevent birds from landing and loafing," Breitenbach said.
The time-honored practice of flying brightly colored flags on the beach, to warn swimmers of dangerous water, has not yet gone the way of the typewriter. Flags will still fly this summer, officials said, but park district two years ago set out to modernize how it reached the public.
District officials set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account, @chicagoparks. In addition to the automated phone line (312-742-3224) that for years has offered recorded messages about beach conditions, this spring the district plans to send swim-ban notifications via text message.
As scientists learn more about the relationship between waterborne bacteria and public health, getting out the information as quickly as possible becomes the next great challenge, Breitenbach said.
"We've made this a commitment because we know it's a public service," she said. "These beaches are meant for all to enjoy."
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