Contrary to a recent letter to the editor (“Taking a dip into safe waters”), water quality tests that monitor the level of fecal indicator bacteria are a reliable and valuable tool for protecting the health of the millions of beachgoers who swim in Malibu waters each year. Numerous EPA studies have shown that people who swim in waters with elevated enterococcus (a fecal indicator bacteria, aka “FIB”) levels are at a significantly higher risk for a number of gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses. In fact, EPA’s recent studies have reaffirmed this health risk relationship, and the 2012 new national bathing water criteria will again be enterococcus-based criteria.
Heal the Bay bases its weekly Beach Report Card grades on FIB densities in the water. We are very confident that the methodology paints an accurate picture of the potential health risks for ocean users that frequent monitored beaches. Also, the EPA and the State Water Board have previously endorsed our beach water quality grading approach.
We, too, are eager to see the implementation of source-specific bacteria identification tests by county monitoring agencies. They have proven useful in sanitary survey work at polluted beaches to find and abate the sources of high FIB levels. Also, the tests have shown promising advancements in safeguarding the health of beachgoers, but the science has only recently moved from infancy to adolescence. The tests are still costly and relatively difficult to perform, and there have not yet been health effects studies that demonstrate a correlation between human pathogens and adverse health effects.
Heal the Bay is working with UC Berkeley, the Southern California Coastal Waters Research Project, and the Orange County Sanitation Districts on three comprehensive epidemiology studies that analyzed the water for over 30 different types of microbes, but those results may not be publicly available for a year.
It’s simply unrealistic to think that fiscally strapped government monitoring agencies-already struggling to fund existing monitoring-have the resources to use an unproven and expensive protocol for regulatory and public health risk management purposes. Until then, Heal the Bay’s Beach Report Card remains the most valuable resource for determining which beaches should be avoided because of potential adverse health risks.
Amanda Griesbach, Water Quality Scientist, Heal the Bay