Key TakeawaysMany beaches may be contaminated with fecal bacteria, which can lead to gastrointestinal issues.Avoid swimming after it rains and wash your hands regularly to cut down on your chances of getting sick at the beach.Check with your local health department to determine if your beach is safe for swimming.

Key Takeaways

Many beaches may be contaminated with fecal bacteria, which can lead to gastrointestinal issues.Avoid swimming after it rains and wash your hands regularly to cut down on your chances of getting sick at the beach.Check with your local health department to determine if your beach is safe for swimming.

Going to the beach might seem like a great way beat this summer’s heat wave. But a new report suggests that you might want to think twice before jumping in the water at many beaches.

One out of every nine beaches included in the report reached this level for 25% of the days tested.

“When we go to the beach, we see crystal clear, beautiful blue water, and we think that it’s clean and safe. But we found in these in these recent reports that there is a lot of beach contamination,”Kelly Johnson-Arbor, MD, a medical toxicologist and interim executive director of the National Capital Poison Center who was not involved in the research, told Verywell.

The findings were not limited to just one part of the country. Eighty-four percent of Gulf Coast beaches, 70% of West Coast beaches, and 63% of the Great Lakes reached these potentially unsafe levels at least once in 2022.

How Contamination Can Make You Sick

The Environment America Research & Policy Center relied on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s “Beach Action Value” for this report. The EPA developed the Beach Action Value as a “conservative, precautionary tool” that states can use when deciding to issue public safety notifications.

If readings are higher than the Beach Action Value, that means the water is contaminated with enough fecal indicator bacteria—enterococci orE. coli—to make some people sick.

Swimming in fecal-contaminated beach water can increase your chances of gettinggastroenteritis, commonly called stomach flu.

You might experience some uncomfortable gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea along with a headache and fever,Rose Taroyan, MD, a primary care physician with Keck Medicine of USC, told Verywell in an email.

Taroyan said one of the best ways to reduce gastroenteritis risk at the beach is simple: wash your hands often, especially after playing in the sand. Ocean water isn’t the only place where germs are found, and digging in the sand can also increase your risk of getting sick.

Is Your Beach Contaminated?

Beaches, likeswimming pools, can be contaminated with poop, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on your summer plans. But, you should consider checking the beach’s water quality levels before going for a swim.

Local health departments are generally responsible for testing beach bacteria levels and notifying the public about any safety concerns with posted advisories at the beach or on their websites.

“During the summer season, we test the water every week as part of our regular beach water quality monitoring system,”Michael Pascucilla, PhD, MPH, CEO and director of health for the East Shore District Health Department in Connecticut, told Verywell.

If the beaches are found to be contaminated with unsafe levels of enterococci orE. colibacteria, then they may be closed for a few days until another test shows that the levels are safe.

“This past week, we had high levels of rainfall in Connecticut and we closed the beaches. We just resampled and now we’re just waiting for the results to see when they can open up,” Pascucilla said.

Rainfall is a big contributor to beach water contamination because the runoff can bring human and animal waste to recreational swimming areas. Pascucilla said that bacteria can be flushed out as the tides change, but this is a hyper-local process. That means how long it takes for the water quality to return to normal varies from place to place.

“In general, a rule of thumb is after significant rainfalls, it’s usually a good idea not to go into the water for at least a couple of days,” he said.

8 Ways Environmental Pollutants Can Harm the Body

How to Stay Safe at the Beach

To keep yourself safe at the beach, try not to swallow the water. Taroyan said you are “less likely to get sick if you avoid submerging underwater, because most pathogens are swallowed in water.”

Don’t go swimming if you have diarrhea. And if you have any cuts or open wounds you’ll also want to stay away from the beach until they heal.

“Because we use salt water or saline solutions to clean off wounds, many people think that the ocean water should be safe to go into because it is saltwater, but that is actually very untrue,” Johnson-Arbor, who is also a wound-care physician, said.

Because kids may not be upfront about when they have to go, it’s best to take them out of the water for a bathroom break every hour according to the CDC.

Sunscreen 101: A Complete Guide to Avoiding Sunburns

If you decide to go for a swim at the beach, Johnson-Arbor said you should rinse off as soon as you can after getting out of the water to get the germs off your body. Many beaches have outdoor showers to facilitate this.

“If you’re flying thousands of miles to go to a beach, the last thing that you want to worry about is checking the health department website to see if you’re going to get sick, but that could save you a lot of a lot of pain and discomfort. So just be safe and plan ahead,” Johnson-Arbor said.

What This Means For YouYour entire beach trip doesn’t have to be ruined if you’re visiting a beach that has been contaminated. It might just take a few days for the bacteria to be flushed out. Check with the local health department for any updates.

What This Means For You

Your entire beach trip doesn’t have to be ruined if you’re visiting a beach that has been contaminated. It might just take a few days for the bacteria to be flushed out. Check with the local health department for any updates.

3 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Environment America Research & Policy Center.Safe for swimming?.Environmental Protection Agency.Learn: what affects human health at the beach.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Diarrhea and swimming.

3 Sources

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Environment America Research & Policy Center.Safe for swimming?.Environmental Protection Agency.Learn: what affects human health at the beach.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Diarrhea and swimming.

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Environment America Research & Policy Center.Safe for swimming?.Environmental Protection Agency.Learn: what affects human health at the beach.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Diarrhea and swimming.

Environment America Research & Policy Center.Safe for swimming?.

Environmental Protection Agency.Learn: what affects human health at the beach.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Diarrhea and swimming.

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