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	Home Upcoming Events Institutions & Organizations People Bays & Estuaries Reefs, Banks & Islands Environmental Issues General Facts about the Gulf Exploration History Other Online Resources Electronic Books Mexican Coral Reef Species Checklist InfoHub Site Search:		Texas Beach Watch Program http://www.texasbeachwatch.com/ In October 2000, Congress passed the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act of 2000 (BEACH Act) to protect the public health at our nation's beaches. The BEACH Act requires that states, in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), develop and implement a program to monitor coastal recreation waters adjacent to beaches that are used by the public and to notify the public if water quality standards for pathogens and pathogen indicators are exceeded. In July 2001, the Office of the Governor appointed the General Land Office as the lead state agency to implement the BEACH Act based upon the current Beach Watch Program. This locally controlled program makes available baseline data on the health of the gulf waters. The BEACH Act requires the state to identify all factors used to evaluate and rank beaches, identify coastal recreation waters in the state, identify bathing beaches adjacent to coastal recreational waters, develop a sampling, monitoring and notification program, develop a method for issuing beach advisories and/or closings, and develop a method to notify the public. Currently, the Texas Beach Watch Program collects water samples from 167 stations along the Texas coast in Aransas, Brazoria, Cameron, Galveston, Jefferson, Kleberg, Matagorda, Nueces, and San Patricio Counties. The GLO contracts with universities, local governments and laboratories to collect these samples and test them for the presence of Enterococcus. Samples are collected weekly during the peak beach season from May through September and every other week from October through April. In past years, however, weekly samples have been collected in March for Gulf of Mexico beaches to coincide with spring break. Weekly sampling at these beaches will continue, and additional popular spring break beaches will also be included. Principal Investigator(s) or Program Chair: Davis, Craig Tischler, Keith Land, Sheri Porter, Melissa Sponsor(s): United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Institution(s): Texas General Land Office (TGLO) Lamar University, Galveston County Health District, Hygeia Laboratories, TAMU-CC, University of Texas-Pan American, United States Environmental Protection Agency Field of Focus: Monitoring of Coastal Recreational Waters for Bacteria; Public Notification of Poor Water Quality Standards; Ecological Indicators; Ecotourism; Pollution; Public Health; Microbiology Study Site:   Coastwide, Texas Award Amount:   By Federal Fiscal Year Award Period:   Ongoing Publications and Related Information: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/beaches/ http://www.texasbeachwatch.com/ Home Page:   http://www.texasbeachwatch.com/ E-mail:   craig.davis@glo.state.tx.us Keywords:   Beach Watch, Water quality, Texas beaches, Bacteria
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GulfBase is a project of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. To give proper credit to the original authors, please cite information taken from GulfBase by the original source as displayed. To cite GulfBase, use: M. Nipper, J.A. Sánchez Chávez, and J.W. Tunnell, Jr., Editors. 2010. GulfBase: Resource Database for Gulf of Mexico Research. World Wide Web electronic publication. http://www.gulfbase.org, 09 February 2010.

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