Esperanza Stanicioff is one of the coordinators for the Maine Healthy Beaches program, the volunteer group that posted the sign in Kittery and is working to coordinate monitoring efforts among communities across the state.

Because Maine has no jurisdiction over the beaches, the monitoring falls under the purview of each town. Stanicioff calls it a “real community development process.”

“We’re very new at this. However, we’ve come a very long way in a short period of time,” she said.

Keeping a watch on Maine’s beaches has always been a thorny issue. Control of the beaches has been left up to individual communities, and monitoring water quality has largely been a voluntary activity, with each town using different monitoring methods or, in some cases, not keeping track of water quality at all. All that changed in 2001 with the creation of the Maine Healthy Beaches program, a partnership between the federal EPA and a consortium of groups across Maine to promote water quality awareness at the state’s beaches. Now, as the program steps up efforts to educate swimmers, communities like Kittery are strengthening their ordinances to allow town officials to close beaches when bacteria levels are too high.

Forty-six of the state’s beaches, or an estimated 90 percent, are currently taking part in the program. None are closed, according to Janeski, although some may be under an advisory. Enrollment is strictly voluntary and each municipality must approach MHB if it wants to participate.
Janeski attributes the lack of beach monitoring in some communities to a lack of funds and the state government’s “grassroots, bottom-up” organization. Before the Healthy Beaches program, there also wasn’t any one group of procedures and standards to follow for water quality monitoring.

“It’s a voluntary program,” Janeski said. “If town X doesn’t want to participate, it’s their prerogative…(but) I don’t think it’s in their best interest.” Recently, one community received negative press for not participating in the program. Though he wouldn’t name the town, Janeski said, “We very quickly got a phone call from the town asking to be in the program.”

Though the number of volunteers fluctuates, Stanicioff estimates there are between 25 and 35 volunteers who collect water samples throughout Maine. Additional help comes from lifeguards, members of local conservation commissions and town employees who also help monitor beaches. At most beaches, testing occurs at least once a week, although in some places, like Portland, the beach is tested three times a week.

Water watchers are looking for high levels of enterococci, a bacteria typically found in fecal matter. The source for such pollution can come from animals or humans. Swimming in water with high levels of the bacteria can result in swimmer’s itch, a skin rash caused by parasites in the water. If there are more than 100 colony-forming units of bacteria in the water sample, Stanicioff said the site will be resampled and the beach manager will be contacted. However, both Janeski and Stanicioff cautioned that beach closures are based not solely on the bacteria level but on a number of factors, including location, previous pollution scores and the level of rainfall.

In addition to educating swimmers with posters and advisories, Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services Environmental Health Director Clough Toppan suggests that towns provide portable toilets at their beaches.