Published August 15, 2003 by WUWF News, Pensacola
A new environmental report says beaches around Florida were closed by pollution more than 17-hundred times last year. John Richardson reports that’s more than twice as often as the year before.
The Natural Resources Defense Council says only California had more closings. The group is out with its annual "Testing the Waters" report. Poor water quality is usually caused by polluted storm water runoff or by sewage overflows. It can cause a variety of illnesses. Experts say the apparent growth in Florida's beach water-quality problems was caused by several factors. They say more rain last year, compared with the previous year s drought, meant more runoff, for instance. But they also point out some of the increase was because of a new state monitoring system.
Water at Florida beaches is now tested weekly, instead of every two weeks, and stricter standards are used.
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