What was required by the Beach Act?
The Beach Act required beach regulators to develop a formal plan that addresses procedures used to assess beach water quality and to notify the public in cases where water quality criteria were exceeded. Each plan was to include details pertaining to beach locations, sample collection and analysis procedures, an assessment of the risk associated with swimming at the beach, and procedures for issuing advisories and closures. The Act also required the adoption of new or revised water quality criteria that utilized Enterococci as a pathogen indicator for marine waters and either Escherichia coli (E. coli) or Enterococci as an indicator for freshwaters.
