Children playing on Indiana Dunes Beach (Photo by Lester Graham)
The number of days beaches were
closed due to pollution last year was
the second highest on record. Mark Brush
reports, that’s according to a new report
by an environmental group:
Transcript
The number of days beaches were
closed due to pollution last year was
the second highest on record. Mark Brush
reports, that’s according to a new report
by an environmental group:
The National Resources Defense Council says beaches across the country were closed to
swimmers for more than 22,000 days last year.
Sometimes the beaches were closed when sewer plants would overflow.
Nancy Stoner is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
She says most of the time beaches were closed after a big rainstorm
That’s because rain washes pollution into the water.
“I’m more cautious now after swimming after a heavy rainfall. And the other thing about
it is that the ocean beaches in general tend to be cleaner than beaches that are in bays
and sounds and other protected areas, so it makes me want to go to the ocean.”
Ocean waves tend to wash away the pollution a lot faster.
Beach closings along the Great Lakes were twice as high as the national average.
For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.