Scrubbed Budgets Mean Dirty Beaches

Is my local beach clean?  Is the water safe for me and my kids to swim in?  Fair questions, especially as Rhode Island has been ripped by heat waves, and the shore seems the only alternative for escape outside of a movie theater or the frozen food section at the supermarket.

Not surprisingly, this has become a major topic for the local media. But we are hearing mixed messages from various sources, producing an overall assessment that includes the good, the bad and the ugly: great and inventive cleanup progress at Bristol Town Beach; stormwater runoff pollution still plaguing Narragansett Bay and concern about low oxygen levels, threatening a repeat of the Greenwich Bay fish kill of 2003; and the cringe-worthy marine wee beasties called “isopods” (or the even more charming “sea roaches”) surrounding swimmers when they enter the water. True, they won’t hurt you unless they mistake you for floating seaweed and try to “pinch” a ride.

Rhode Island’s beaches aren’t just appealing and important because of their refreshing waters and beautiful sands.  They are a huge economic driver for the state through tourism, and recreational and commercial fishing, as well as improving the treasured quality of life for local residents and businesses.

This impact is no more apparent than on Aquidneck Island, where the odor and seaweed problems at First Beach and Atlantic Beach, and an imposing threat at Sachuest (Second) Beach, have direct economic impacts for relying upon the trade of both the in-state and out-of-state visitors.

Watershed Counts, co-led by the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Institute and the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, is a partnership of 60 state and federal agencies, NGOs, municipalities and watershed groups that annually assesses the environmental quality of the Narragansett Bay watershed. Watershed Counts constantly stresses the fact that Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island’s coastline are not only our leading environmental resource, but a vital economic asset as well. 

Closing beaches doesn’t just affect a family outing; it hits ancillary businesses from restaurants to hotels in the wallet. A visitor from out of state who comes to The Ocean State and finds they can’t swim or boogie board in the waters or stomach the odor from a closed beach may well book their next holiday on Cape Cod. We all know that Rhode Island’s economy can’t afford the hit.

Given the importance of keeping Rhode Island’s beaches clean – from E-coli to isopods - and open to all comers, you might think that beach monitoring by and for the state for health purposes and to guide clean-up efforts would be a priority. Not so fast. 

The state’s beach monitoring program, conducted in exemplary fashion for years by the state Department of Health (HEALTH), is totally federally funded.  As of now, the state doesn’t put a dollar into the ongoing program, but instead relies on the Environmental Protection Agency to funnel funds to Rhode Island to ensure our health and safety when we hit the beach. Since the EPA is responsible for ensuring “swimmable/fishable waters” under the Clean Water Act, relying on them for support of beach monitoring may seem like a logical choice.

There is one major problem with that scenario: those funds may soon vanish, and the people who make decisions in the state seem either totally unaware of that fact or elect to put it on the back burner in light of other fiscal pressures. Penny-wise and pound-foolish is a mantra that has served New Englanders well. We would be wise to heed it on beach monitoring.

In the federal government’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget, the state was provided with $212,000 to run its beach monitoring program.  Thanks to federal sequestration, that figure came down to $201,000 for FY 2013 (which will fund the beach testing work of HEALTH in 2014).  After that, who knows?  There has already been the threat in future proposed federal budgets to cut the funding out altogether. Is Rhode Island ready for that? Not at this point. Can we afford the associated losses? Absolutely not. And although we have many excellent state agencies, such as the Department of Health, Department of Environmental Management, the Coastal Resources Management Council and so many others, we need our elected leadership to sort this out. Rhode Island’s Congressional delegation, its governor, and the General Assembly have been champions of the environment. We need them to bring their collective clout, insight and savvy to bear for our beaches and economy.

So while we worry about the future of assuring the revenue-generating cleanliness and safety of our beaches - and how we can give a guarantee of a scientifically-supported assessment - we should also be contemplating what would happen if we don’t have in place the funds to report on the good, the bad and the ugly that we may encounter in the future, and be prepared to deal with those impacts.

The possibility of losing the money that helps us determine whether or not you and your children can safely go into the water should be an eyebrow raiser.  But right now, it is being scrubbed from public dialogue, but with enormous implications for the future.