"As Americans flock to the country’s coasts — and to the lakes and rivers in between — in the heat of summer, they may be doing so despite the presence of fecal matter.
A stark 1,930 out of 3,187 beaches sampled across the nation in 2024 experienced at least one day on which indicators of fecal contamination exceeded federal safety levels, a new report has revealed.
Those beaches, about 61 percent of those tested, surpassed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) most protective “Beach Action Value,” a precautionary tool states can utilize to make closure decisions.
About 1 in 7 beaches — 453 of those sampled — showed potentially unsafe fecal contamination on at least 25 percent of the days on which testing occurred, according to the report, related by Environment America’s Research & Policy Center."
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