N.C. beaches rank among nation's cleanest

Last year's drought had at least one benefit: It made the state's beaches some of the cleanest in the nation.

Without stormwater runoff pouring into rivers that feed into the ocean, visitors to North Carolina beaches last year swam in much less bacterial pollution, according to the annual survey of water quality at public beaches released Tuesday.

Nancy Stoner, director of the clean water project for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which compiles the report, cited North Carolina as one of states with the lowest percentage of violations of water quality standards at recreational beaches.

Only 1 percent of beach water samples at North Carolina beaches exceeded the bacterial standards last year, down from 2 percent during 2006. Others states with few violations were Virginia, Delaware, New Hampshire and Alaska.

"Those are actually very good numbers, indicating they are pretty clean beaches," Stoner said.

By comparison, 7 percent of samples exceeded health standards nationwide last year.

The number of days when beaches were posted with swimming advisories in North Carolina dropped to 123 last year from 346 in 2006. The Southeast as a whole also saw a dramatic decline in water advisories.

Stoner said the drought that parched the Southeast last summer played a role. Less rainfall generally means less storm water runoff which washes pollution off streets and highways and accounts for much of the water pollution at beaches. It was the only region where the numbers were down for two consecutive years.

Nationwide, the survey of water quality at public beaches found that beach closings dropped, but pollution still caused the second-highest number of beach closings and advisories in the 18-year history of the report. The number of beach closings topped 20,000 for the third consecutive year.

'Beach bums' no more

J.D. Potts, manager of the state's recreational water quality program, said North Carolina's coastal waters are generally clean and are tested frequently.

Environmental health officials sampled 244 sites in 19 coastal counties, many of them weekly from April to October. They check water samples for enterococcus, an organism found in the intestines of warm-blooded animals that is closely correlated with other disease-causing organisms.

Potts said the main causes of pollution are stormwater runoff, waste from pets and wildlife, and boats at moorings that dump sewage directly into water.

"The last couple of summers we just haven't had that much rain," Potts said. "Most of the runoff affects our soundside waters more than it does the ocean."

The report identified 14 of 244 monitoring sites on North Carolina oceanfront and soundfront beaches with the highest percentage of water samples with bacteria levels that exceeded safe limits. Most occurred at soundside locations in areas that aren't flushed by tides. Several were around boat ramps.

Carteret County had four spots with high water-quality violations, followed by New Hanover, Currituck and Dare counties with three each, and Chowan with one, the report said.

The state began monitoring water quality along its beaches in 1997, a year after the Natural Resources Defense Council listed North Carolina among its "beach bums" for not checking the quality of its water.