Bacteria Rule for Coastal and Great Lakes Recreation Waters

Our bacteria rule ensures human health protection for coastal and Great Lakes recreation waters . This is an important step in fulfilling the Administration’s commitment to further protect water quality at our nation’s beaches.

• Background
• Final rule
• Frequent questions about the rule
• Proposed rule
• Letters to states and territories
• For more information

Background

We publish criteria

To make coastal waters safe for swimming and other recreation, the Clean Water Act requires us to publish "criteria," or scientifically justified limits for various pollutants. For example, a criterion for a pollutant says that there can be no more than a certain concentration of that pollutant (e.g 10 parts per million) in the water or else that water fails to protect human health.

States adopt criteria

States, under the Clean Water Act, have the responsibility for writing "standards," or legal limits on pollutants that protect coastal recreation waters for swimming use. The states must adopt protective criteria into their standards. They can do this three ways:

• adopt the our recommended criteria
• modify the our recommended criteria to reflect site-specific conditions; or
• adopt criteria that is "as protective as" our recommendation based on scientifically-defensible methods.

The BEACH Act ensures protection

Although states are required to write the standards, we have to approve them. As of 2000, many states hadn't adopted our recommended bacteria criteria or an "as protective" alternative into their standards for coastal recreation waters.

In response, Congress passed the BEACH Act giving states until April 2004 to adopt protective bacteria criteria into their state standards. For states that didn't meet this deadline, the BEACH Act required us to issue federal standards to ensure national protection. With this new rule, we are putting federal standards into place for those states without criteria that are as protective of health as our criteria for coastal recreation waters.

For more information, including a list of states and their current status, see the final rule fact sheet.

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Final rule

• Press release (November 8, 2004)
• Fact sheet (summary) about the final rule
• Final rule published in the Federal Register | Print version from the Government Printing Office (November 16, 2004)
• Frequent questions
• Find background material using the E-Docket. Click on "Quick Search" and type in OW-2004-0010 into the search field.

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Proposed rule

• Press Release (July 2, 2004)
• Fact Sheet about the proposed rule
• Proposed rule published in the Federal Register | Print version (PDF format, 213KB, 25 pages) (July 9, 2004)

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Letters to states and territories

35 Letters written to States and Territories notifying them of their bacteria water quality standard status.

Please contact healy.richard@epa.gov for section 508 accessible letters.

For more information

Other web resources:

• Frequent Questions
• Clean Beaches Plan
• Beaches Web site
• Beach Standards, Monitoring, & Notification Web site
• Water Quality Standards Web site
• BEACH Act
• Status Report: Bacterial Water Quality Standards for Recreational Waters (Freshwater and Marine Waters)
• Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Bacteria - 1986 (PDF, 662KB, 24 pages)
• DRAFT Implementation Guidance for Bacteria
• Bacterial Water Quality Standards for Recreational Waters (Freshwater and Marine Waters) - Status Report
• Find background material using E-Dockets. Click on "Quick Search" and type in OW-2004-0010 into the search field.
• Waterborne disease information from the Center for Disease Control (CDC)

Agency contact:

Lars Wilcut
wilcut.lars@epa.gov
202-566–0447

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