HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!
Another opportunity to begin again . . .
Beach and Bay Water Quality Reports Dr. Kate Connors, the main character in Nocturne, Opus 1: Sea Foam, always checks the beach water quality before she allows her three-year-old daughter to play in the water. In my last post, I described how the state of Delaware reports its beach and bay water quality testing results to its tourists and local residents. Can you share with us where your state posts its recreational water quality test results?
In New Jersey the Cooperative Coastal Monitoring Program, CCMP, is administered by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. It provides an explanation of its program and the Monday water quality testing results for New Jersey's beaches at http://www.nj.gov/dep/beaches/monitoring_results.htm: Beach Water Quality Monitoring Results Each week during the summer season, water samples are collected at 175 ocean and 43 bay monitoring stations along the coast of New Jersey. Samples are analyzed for the presence of Enterococci, a type of bacteria found in animal and human waste. The State Sanitary Code requires that the concentration of bacteria not exceed 104 Enterococci /100 mL of sample. An exceedance of this concentration may be harmful to human health (see our Health Risk Information section). When a sample exceeds the State standard, additional sampling is conducted and continues each day until the sample result is below 104 Enterococci/100 mL. If two consecutive samples exceed the standard, the bathing beach closes until sample results are below the standard. In addition to bacteria monitoring, regional health or enforcement agencies may close beaches at any time at their discretion to protect public health and safety.To view water quality results use the links below to navigate to each county. Cape May County Ocean County Atlantic County Monmouth County Historical Beach Water Quality Monitoring Results Beach Water Quality Monitoring Trends Beach and Bay Water Quality Reports
In my new novel, Dr. Kate Connors always checks the beach water quality reports before she allows her three-year-old daughter Crystal to play in the water. How many of us actually know where those water quality reports are posted and which beaches are most likely to have contaminated water? In Nocturne, Opus 1: Sea Foam, characters participate in a fact-based political debate about which beaches along the United States' seacoast have passed water quality tests, which are the worst offenders, and how quickly tourists and local residents are notified of a problem. Where are the water quality reports posted in your state for bodies of water where children and adults play, swim, kayak, sail, or participate in other activities? In Delaware the marine beachwater monitoring is done by DNREC, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. Posted on their website http://apps.dnrec.state.de.us/RecWater/ are maps citing water quality at state beaches and the following information: The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control's Recreational Water Program protects the health of swimmers in a number of ways.
Want Beach Monitoring Advisories hot off the press? Join the Beach Monitoring list from DNREC Online Email Lists. |
AuthorDr. Norene Moskalski can often be found walking the beaches of the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, collecting sea glass, weathered minerals, unusual shells, and artifacts from colonial shipwrecks. A naturalist and environmentalist by nature, and a medical diagnostician by avocation, she has a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration and has held administrative and teaching positions at Penn State University and Temple University. She has spent most of her life preparing administrators and teachers to lead and teach ethically with love and respect for everyone. The settings for her novels are authentic vignettes from university campuses and places around the world she has visited. Each novel presents a variation on a theme, using literary techniques and musical innuendos to move the action forward. Her plots revolve around the unexpected: What if the most beautiful things in the world are the most dangerous? 
March 2016
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