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Safe for Swimming?

America's beaches are some of our favorite places to relax ... when the water is safe. Where is water pollution harming our ability to enjoy the beach? And what can we do to stop it?

Clean water

Report

Chuck Bennett | Used by permission

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Americans love the beach. Our lake and ocean waters are great places to cool off on a hot day, to relax with friends and family, or simply to enjoy peace and quiet amid nature.

Too often, however, water pollution ruins our enjoyment of the beach – and it can even make us sick. Fecal contamination from sources such as urban runoff, sewage overflows and factory farms can contain pathogens that threaten the health of swimmers, or that force beaches to be closed to protect public health.

How often do fecal contamination levels at America’s beaches pose a potential threat to our health? And what steps can we take to reduce water pollution that harms our coastal waters?

61% of U.S. beaches had potentially unsafe contamination levels in 2024

In 2024, 1,930 out of 3,187 tested beaches nationwide (61%) experienced at least one day on which indicators of fecal contamination reached potentially unsafe levels – that is, exceeding EPA’s most protective “Beach Action Value,” a conservative, precautionary tool states can use to make beach notification decisions. Beaches may also have experienced contamination on days when testing did not take place. (See “Methodology” below.)

And 453 beaches – approximately one in seven beaches tested nationwide – had potentially unsafe levels of fecal contamination on at least 25% of the days on which testing took place.

How often were beaches in my state potentially unsafe in 2024?

States vary in how frequently and widely they test their beaches. The dashboard below shows the number of days with tests showing potentially unsafe levels of fecal indicator criteria in each state in 2024, as well as the percentage of days on which testing took place. Choose a state below to begin.

Beach pollution threatens our health

Swimming in contaminated water can cause gastrointestinal illness as well as respiratory disease, ear and eye infection, and skin rash. Each year, there are an estimated 57 million cases of illness in the U.S. resulting from swimming in oceans, lakes, rivers and ponds. The vast majority of these illnesses go unreported.

Contaminated water can also trigger health warnings or closures that interfere with our ability to enjoy the beach. There were more than 7,563* health warnings or closures at U.S. coastal and Great Lakes beaches in 2024, affecting one out of every 15  swimming days.

*As of June 25, 2025.

Where does beach pollution come from?

Significant and widespread sources of pathogen pollution that can make swimmers sick include sewage overflows and stormwater runoff:

  • Overflows from outdated and deteriorating sewage systems. Sewage is a particularly dangerous threat to beach safety because it contains bacteria, viruses and parasites that are prone to cause disease in humans. Unfortunately, sewage infrastructure around the country is inadequate or in poor repair, enabling raw sewage to find its way into our waterways.
    • Sanitary sewers, the systems used in most of the country, can spill dangerous sewage if sewer lines become blocked or if poorly maintained pipes break or allow infiltration of stormwater through cracks, overwhelming the capacity of the system. Sanitary sewers overflow as many as 75,000 times each year in the U.S.
    • Combined sewers are outdated systems that combine stormwater and sewage into a single pipe. Still present in about 700 municipalities across the country, many of these systems are designed to discharge raw sewage directly into nearby waterways during heavy rain events.
    • Private septic systems, which are used by approximately one in four Americans, are also a major source of sewage pollution that affects beaches and coastal areas.
  • Runoff from sprawling development. The addition of impervious surfaces – such as parking lots, roads and larger homes – increases the flow of polluted stormwater into our rivers, bays and coastal waters. Paving over wetlands or forests that had once absorbed rainfall and filtered pollution makes this problem worse. Sprawl also exacerbates the proliferation of septic systems, which often leak and can pollute our waters as noted above. From 1996 to 2016, U.S. coastal areas added 4.2 million acres of development, while losing 640,000 acres of wetland and almost 10 million acres of forest.

Other sources of pathogens can also affect water quality at beaches. In some parts of the country, fecal pollution from livestock production is responsible for beach closures and shellfish restrictions. This pollution risk is markedly worse from factory farms (also known as “concentrated animal feeding operations” or CAFOs), because of the sheer volume of manure they generate. Lagoons holding waste from hog and dairy farms can also be inundated during heavy rains, carrying their contents into waterways.  Animal waste from wildlife can also wind up in our waters. 

Without strong action, the flow of pathogens to our beaches and other waters is likely to get worse – especially with more intense precipitation, more impervious surfaces, and further deterioration of wastewater infrastructure.

What can we do to prevent beach pollution?

Congress took a big step to reduce the threat of beach pollution by passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (otherwise known as the bipartisan infrastructure law) in 2021. The law not only directly provides $11.7 billion for sewage and stormwater projects but also authorizes an additional $14.65 billion for that purpose. The EPA estimates the actual need for wastewater infrastructure at least $630 billion.

Despite some progress, water pollution remains a persistent threat to beachgoers and the ecosystems that support them. Contaminated runoff, aging sewage systems, and agricultural waste continue to close beaches and endanger public health.

But there is much more we can do to protect and improve water quality at our beaches – and at all of America’s waterways. Local, state and federal governments should:

  • Invest in fixing and improving our wastewater infrastructure. This includes repairs and upgrades to conventional sewage treatment plants and stormwater storage, as well as natural and green infrastructure features such as rain barrels, permeable pavement, urban green space and green roofs; requiring the use of green infrastructure in new development; and protecting natural infrastructure such as riparian areas and wetlands that filter pathogens and other pollutants. Officials should also enforce pollution limits from wastewater systems and ensure proper maintenance of residential septic systems.
  • Prevent manure pollution by enacting moratoriums on new or expanded industrial-scale livestock operations; banning livestock waste lagoons, especially in flood-prone areas; enacting policies to stop manure from factory farms from flowing into waterways upstream from our beaches; and encouraging livestock operations to raise animals on rotational pasture.
  • Protect wetlands, which reduce beach contamination by absorbing floodwaters and filtering out pollutants. State and local protections for our remaining wetlands are increasingly urgent after the Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. EPA erased Clean Water Act safeguards for many of them.
  • Expand and improve beach testing to identify beaches where pollution puts public health at risk and ensure the safety of the public.

Methodology

National beach fecal indicator bacteria testing data was downloaded from the National Water Quality Monitoring Council’s Water Quality Portal (WQP) on May 20, 2025. [1] This analysis includes water quality data at all beaches listed under the BEACH Act located in U.S. states and Puerto Rico for which 2024 testing data was available. [2] Some beaches included in this analysis are now considered “historical” BEACH Act beaches, and are monitored under separate programs. State and tribal beach program coordinators were contacted to confirm that their jurisdictions had finished submitting and verifying data for the 2024 swimming season to the EPA. [3] Minnesota and Hawai’i reported that they had not finished verifying their data – data from these states in this analysis should be considered incomplete. As of May 2025, Indiana and Ohio had not responded to confirm the completeness of their data. 

Illinois reported that they do not upload their data to the Water Quality Portal and did not supply data in response to a FOIA request. Data for Illinois comes from a variety of sources. Data for Wilmette, Evanston and Chicago was either downloaded from or requested directly from the local governments. Data for Chicago beaches was downloaded from the City of Chicago’s data portal. [4] Chicago beach sample results were taken from the data field “DNA Reading Mean.” Data for beaches in Wilmette and Evanston was supplied by the local government. Data for the remainder of Illinois beaches was downloaded from the Illinois Department of Health’s Illinois BeachGuard website on June 23, 2025. The completeness and accuracy of this data is unknown.

Additionally, data for Virginia, Massachusetts and New Hampshire was obtained separately, as those states had final data that was not reflected in the WQP correctly. In Virginia’s case, there were gaps in the data, and it was downloaded directly from the Virginia Department of Health, as they guided us on May 8, 2025. For Massachusetts, the data was downloaded from the EPA’s BEACON report page on May 20, 2025. [5] In New Hampshire’s case, there were gaps in the data, and the data was sent separately by the state.

Beach sites were considered “potentially unsafe” if sample results exceeded the EPA Beach Action Value (BAV) associated with an estimated illness rate of 32 per 1,000 swimmers, with two exceptions noted below. [6] The EPA suggests states use BAVs “as a conservative, precautionary tool for making beach notification decisions.” [7] As most states use different criteria for assessing beach safety (often based on each state’s water quality standards or testing values associated with a higher estimated rate of swimmer illnesses) the number of beach days identified as of concern may differ from state agency reports on beach water quality. The following BAVs were used for assessing beach safety:

  • For enterococcus, the BAV is 60 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters (cfu/100mL), for both marine and fresh water. 
  • For E. coli the BAV is 190 cfu/100mL, for fresh water only. 
  • For enterococcus tests conducted using a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) method, in Illinois, with results reported as calibrator cell equivalent (cce) per 100mL, the BAV is 640 cce/100mL, for both marine and fresh water.

Several jurisdictions reported testing results for which a national BAV consistent with benchmark used in this analysis has not yet been established. The state of California conducts extensive testing for E. coli in marine waters, for which the state has adopted its own safety standards. These tests are excluded from this analysis. Beaches for which E. coli test results were not considered are indicated as such in the data tables.

San Diego County, California, and, for some beaches, the state of Michigan, use different forms of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) rapid beach testing, which allows for same-day notification of potential beach safety issues. The U.S. EPA has approved a benchmark of 1,413 DNA copies/100mL for enterococcus in San Diego County [8], while Michigan uses a standard of 1.863 log10 copies/reaction for E. coli. [9] Both metrics correspond to enterococcus/E. coli levels from traditional tests that are less stringent than the BAVs used elsewhere in this analysis. In order to provide as complete a picture of beach safety as possible, and in the absence of established thresholds for these tests at the 32 illnesses/swimmers benchmark, the state standards for these measures are used to determine the existence of a “potentially unsafe” beach day. Beaches at which these tests have been used are indicated as such in the data tables.

In general, a “potentially unsafe day” is one in which a single test at a particular beach exceeded the BAV for fecal indicator bacteria. This includes beaches with multiple monitoring sites or that conduct multiple tests per day. States vary widely in their definitions of what constitutes a “beach,” with some states reporting data for multiple testing sites spread over several miles under a single beach name and ID and others reporting data for smaller beach segments separately. There is no standard way to ensure uniformity across states, so readers are advised not to compare the number or percentage of potentially unsafe days across state lines. Beaches with multiple monitoring sites are indicated as such in the data tables. 

Some states submit the mean of a day’s testing results at a particular site rather than, or in addition to, individual test results. In these cases, exceedance of the BAV by the mean value is treated the same as an exceedance of the single-test value (since at least one individual test value would have to exceed the limit in order for the mean value to be exceeded). However, use of the mean may result in some beaches with individual test values in exceedance of the BAV not being identified as such. 

State tables of beach sites generally include the 10 beaches with the most potentially unsafe days, ordered by most to fewest. Tables are secondarily ordered by fewest to most days with testing.

The average percentage of potentially unsafe days by county was calculated by averaging percentages of potentially unsafe sampling days for all beaches within each county. 

Some data cleanup and categorization were performed before conducting analysis and mapping:

Water quality data was linked to beach attribute data, such as beach name and location, using each water sample’s associated “Beach ID.” In the WQP, Beach IDs are listed under the attribute “ProjectIdentifier.” Beach attribute data was obtained through the EPA’s Beach Advisory and Closing Online Notification (BEACON) system. [10] Beach names were cleaned and formatted by standardizing common symbols and abbreviations, as well as based on information from BEACON or from state website listings of beaches.

Location data for displaying beach sites on maps comes from two sources. The majority of beach locations were based on the midpoint of start and end points contained in the beach attributes available through BEACON. [11] For beaches where such information was either not available or was obviously incorrect, beach location was obtained for the beach’s affiliated sampling site from the National Water Quality Monitoring Council’s Water Quality Portal or from other sources.  Because of the nature of the geotagging process, and despite the authors’ efforts to correct erroneous locations, sample sites displayed on maps may occasionally reflect imprecise locations.

For regional aggregations, most beaches were assigned to regions based on their state. New York and Florida both contain sample sites grouped to two different regions: New York has sample sites in the Great Lakes and the East Coast, and Florida has sample sites in the Gulf and the East Coast. Those beaches were assigned based on their BEACON “Waterbody Name” attribute.

In addition to each to each sample’s recorded measurement, other information in the WQP had the potential to affect how samples were treated in this analysis:

Samples with parameter ResultDetectionConditionText of “Present Above Quantification Limit” were assumed to have a bacteria count equal to that test record’s quantification limit, from the field “DetectionQuantitationLimitMeasure/MeasureValue.”

Measure values recorded as “less than” a specific number value (indicated with a “<” symbol) were treated as safe samples. Measure values indicated as “more than” a value (indicated with a “>” symbol) were treated as the value that followed the symbol.

Samples with measure values recorded as “DELETED,” “-99” or “-999.99” were deleted. Additionally, several records for which comments in “ResultCommentText” indicated a potential data quality problem were excluded. 

Measurements for which the parameter “ResultMeasure/MeasureUnitCode” was not specified were assumed to be reported in colony-forming units (cfu) per 100 milliliters (as opposed to calibrator cell equivalents reported for the still-rarely-used quantitative polymerase chain reaction tests).

In cases where ” ResultMeasureValue” was missing, we treated the sample as a non-detect and assigned a result of zero. In most cases, information elsewhere in the database confirms that the samples are non-detects or indicates that the sample was below the detection limit. 

Sample results were not considered if parameter “StatisticalBaseCode” was recorded as a “30-day Geometric Mean” test, as multi-day tests (often used to determine compliance with water quality standards) cannot be used to determine beach safety for specific days. We did explicitly include StatisticalBaseCode flagged as “minimum,” as they reflect values observed on a single day and are suitable for our day-by-day analysis.

[1] Data downloaded April 28, 2025 from https://www.waterqualitydata.us/portal/.

[2] Specifically, samples were included if they had a “Beach ID” matching a beach in the BEACON system, and if that Beach ID matched a beach that was marked as a BEACH Act Beach in the Beach Profile report available through BEACON at hhttps://beacon.epa.gov/ords/beacon2/r/beacon_apex/beacon2/beach-profile-list .

[3] Coordinator contact information accessed via U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “State, Territorial, Tribal and EPA Beach Program Contacts,” accessed March 31, 2025 at https://www.epa.gov/beaches/state-territorial-tribal-and-epa-beach-program-contacts. 

[4] City of Chicago Data Portal, Beach Lab Data – DNA Tests, downloaded May 22, 2025 from https://data.cityofchicago.org/Parks-Recreation/Beach-Lab-Data-DNA-Tests/hmqm-anjq.

[5] Massachusetts data: Downloaded from EPA’s Beacon website, obtained 22 May 2025; Virginia data: from Virginia Department of Health, “Waterborne Hazards Control: Monitoring and Advisory Data by Year,” downloaded May 8, 2025 at https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/waterborne-hazards-control/statistics/monitoring-and-advisory-data-by-year/; New Hampshire data: Michele Busi, personal communication, obtained May 12, 2025; Wilmette data: Stephanie Ladao, personal communication, obtained May 15, 2025.

[6] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2012 Recreational Water Quality Criteria, 2012, p. 44, archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20190502174719/https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/rwqc2012.pdf.

[7] U.S. EPA, 2012 Recreational Water Quality Criteria.

[8] Terrence Fleming, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region IX, Letter to Lars Seifert RE: Request for Concurrence to Implement ddPCR for Beach Water Quality Rapid Detection Method for Recreational Beaches in San Diego County, October 6, 2020, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20230626215056/https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-04/documents/epa_approval_of_ddpcr_beach_pilot-san-diego-c-10-06-2020.pdf.

[9] S. Briggs, et al., “Derivation of the equivalent qPCR value for Escherichia coli to existing culture-based water quality standards for monitoring beaches in Michigan,” IWA 20th International Symposium on Health Related Water Microbiology, Vienna, Austria, September 15 – 20, 2019 [abstract], accessed at https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?Lab=NERL&dirEntryId=346775.

[10] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, BEACON 2.0 – Beach Attributes report, downloaded 3 April 2025 from https://beacon.epa.gov/ords/beacon2/f?p=137:5:15170646485344.

[11] Specifically, beach latitude and longitude were calculated as the average of start and end latitudes, and the average of start and end longitudes. Beach attribute data source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, BEACON 2.0 – Beach Attributes report, downloaded April 3, 2025 from https://beacon.epa.gov/ords/beacon2/f?p=137:5:15170646485344.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Katie Day, Senior Environmental Science & Policy Manager at the Surfrider Foundation; Diane Packett, Water Resources Management Specialist at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; and Abhilasha Shrestha, Research Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health for their review and helpful suggestions. Thanks also to Bill Kramer of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and numerous state environmental and public health officials for their assistance in obtaining and analyzing data for this report. The authors also thank Elizabeth Ridlington and Mia Handler of Frontier Group for their editorial and research support.

Environment America Research & Policy Center thanks the Park Foundation for making this project possible.

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Authors

John Rumpler

Clean Water Director and Senior Attorney, Environment America Research & Policy Center

John directs Environment America's efforts to protect our rivers, lakes, streams and drinking water. John’s areas of expertise include lead and other toxic threats to drinking water, factory farms and agribusiness pollution, algal blooms, fracking and the federal Clean Water Act. He previously worked as a staff attorney for Alternatives for Community & Environment and Tobacco Control Resource Center. John lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his family, where he enjoys cooking, running, playing tennis, chess and building sandcastles on the beach.

Tony Dutzik

Associate Director and Senior Policy Analyst, Frontier Group

Tony Dutzik is associate director and senior policy analyst with Frontier Group. His research and ideas on climate, energy and transportation policy have helped shape public policy debates across the U.S., and have earned coverage in media outlets from the New York Times to National Public Radio. A former journalist, Tony lives and works in Boston.

Nilou Yaar

Policy Associate, Frontier Group

Nilou Yaar is a policy associate with Frontier Group. In Iran, she worked with communities affected by environmental challenges. After moving to the U.S., her research focused on climate change and environmental activism, exploring how political and geographical contexts shape societal perceptions.

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