Life’s A Beach, Ain’t It?

By Chip Young

Why we love beaches and keeping them clean

I have always thought that a beach is the world’s cheapest psychiatrist.  It’s free, and you just sit down, watch the water, listen to the waves and mentally veg out, letting your blood pressure drop as fast as ethanol stock shares.  Nine out of 10 therapists, life coaches and any other of today’s self-styled stress messiahs invariably begin their soothing mantra with “Close your eyes and pretend you’re on a beach…“

On the more actively involved side, I have also found that body-surfing is an excellent way to clear out the mind after work. Get a good long ride with only the sound of the rushing surf churning in your ears as you shoot through the water at full stretch and you forget about every annoying person and thing that bothered you all day long.  Although this particular health treatment plan does come with the occasional unexpected head-over-heels, somersaulting flip from a big wave that runs about two gallons of seawater through your sinus cavities and fills your swimsuit with incredibly aggravating and abrasive sand and seaweed.  Just nature’s way of making it real.

And as we encounter weather like that of the recent “Where did this come from?“ sizzling temperatures, it is also nice to sometimes merely walk into the chilly water up to your neck and stand there, to try to put out the flames erupting all over your head and body.

Beyond the mental and physical benefits, beaches are also a huge economic boost for The Ocean State. Tourism brings in millions of dollars every year, and on a given summer day, largely because of our shore and beaches, our population can nearly double as out-of-staters head for the water like a motorized march of the penguins. So it would figure that given those benefits, it would be a good idea to make sure that both residents and visitors know that Little Rhody’s beaches are clean and safe.

No worries, Rhode Island is on the job.

The state Department of Health’s Beach Monitoring Program begins testing the state’s 126 monitored beaches each spring, as they begin their collaborative work with local beach owners, volunteers, cities and towns, and other state agencies to collect samples, monitor water quality and protect the public health.  The program samples coastal beaches five days a week, and receives sample results from its partners seven days a week.  The DoH constantly refines its sampling strategies to focus on areas of greatest concern and when bacteria counts are most likely to be present.  Read: After a heavy rainfall. (For updated info on your local beach or destination site, you can call the DoH Beaches Hotline at 401-222-2751.)

The number of beach closure days is directly related to the amount of rain we get.  In 2006, a heavy year for precipitation, individual beaches were closed for an alarming total of 351 days. In 2007, a moderate year for rain, the closures only numbered 96 all summer.  That’s better.  But it is what happens in the entire watershed, inland as well as right at the shore, that dictates how clean our beaches are.  Stormwater runoff and storm drains deposit oil, gas, and crowd favorites such as pet and wild animal waste directly into our rivers and streams, which then carry those elements down to their natural endpoints at Narragansett Bay or the Atlantic Ocean.  So what you do inland as far as disposing of waste and toxics can be just as important as if you did it while you’re standing up to your ankles in water at the beach.

Fortunately, the Beach Monitoring Program has a 24-hour turnaround time for sampling, so communities who have their beaches closed because of a heavy rain can find out ASAP when they are cleared to re-open by taking daily samples to be assessed.  This doesn’t negate the fact that beaches in the Upper Bay, which are near more populated urban areas with nastier runoffs impacts and flush out more slowly than South County ocean beaches, aren’t more likely to take a heavier hit from the rain, but it does speed up the process of getting folks safely back into the water.

And if you are like me, you are always looking for that sign that says, “The Doctor is in.“

A video feature on the DoH Beach Monitoring Program can be seen on the Channel 10/URI Watershed Report by clicking Watershed Report.