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Riviera Beach Park Has Worst Water Contamination in Florida, Survey Finds

Posted on: Friday, 29 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

Jul. 29--A popular stretch of Riviera Beach shore ranked as Florida's worst for bacterial contamination last year, according to a report released Thursday by an environmental group.

The Natural Resources Defense Council's nationwide survey of beach water quality tallied 3,345 days of beach closings and health advisories in Florida during 2004, a 16 percent drop over the previous year, the group said.

But the annual guide to safe swimming singled out a beach in Phil Foster Park, inside the Intracoastal Waterway beneath the Blue Heron Boulevard bridge, as the stretch of Florida sand most plagued with bacterial pollution in 2004.

The 7-acre park, closed to swimmers in recent months because of hurricane damage and renovation, is county owned and maintained.

While water samples pulled from beaches statewide exceeded public-health standards 3 percent of the time, Phil Foster Park failed 46 percent, the report states. Ninety-one of 200 park water samples checked by state health officials failed safety requirements, said Linda Young, southeast regional director of the Clean Water Network.

"That's shockingly high," Young said, "and in a part of the state where so many people are trying to use the beaches."

Most of Florida's poorer-performing shorelines were on the Gulf of Mexico, mainly in the Florida Keys and Panhandle, according to the report called Testing the Waters.

Palm Beach County checks the water at 14 beaches weekly. Health, park and environmental officials said investigations have been done into the Phil Foster Park bacteria problem but a cause has not been identified.

"It's certainly something we're concerned about, something we're addressing," said Dennis Eshleman, county director of parks and recreation.

Bacterial pollution tainting beach water can come from various sources, including septic tanks, sewer pipes, storm drains, boat discharges and wildlife.

Palm Beach County had 11 days of beach closings or advisories last year, down from 16 in 2002. That number in Broward County fell from 200 in 2003 to nine last year.

Broward's dramatic decrease stemmed from a change in testing locations, officials said.

The Florida Health Department stopped testing sites on the Intracoastal Waterway, where pollution from stormwater runoff and boats can become concentrated, said Steve Dennison, environmental manager for the Health Department's Broward County office.

Few people swim in the Intracoastal, so testing was expanded along other beaches, he said.

Young says counties are finding ways around problem spots.

"They move their tests to places that aren't as polluted. They choose times to test that are better ... so their problems don't show up. They don't have to post the beaches. I don't think it's fair to the public."

The nine days of Broward health advisories were posted along Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, Custer Street in Hollywood, Dania Beach pier and Northeast 16th Street in Pompano Beach, according to the beach-water report.

"We've done pretty well," Dennison said. "I would say the water along our beaches is pretty good."

The only other Palm Beach County beach cited for unsafe bacteria was Dubois Park in Jupiter, where visitors wade into the Intracoastal surf as they do at Phil Foster Park farther south.

Phil Foster's draw for bathers is its alternative environment to the Atlantic seashore. It offers calm water -- with little in the way of dangerous rip currents -- shallow waters and a shady overhang, the bridge that visitors like to picnic under, county Ocean Rescue chief Don May said.

But last year -- while the beach remained closed -- Phil Foster Park remained under a health advisory for roughly three months straight starting in January.

Last year, officials checked out nearby sewer lines and a stormwater outlet to see whether they could be a culprit but found no connection, said Michael Hambor, a Palm Beach County Health Department supervisor.

Another theory suggests tidal currents around the park may not be flushing the water very well.

The anchoring of boats near the park beach, which could be dumping waste overboard, might also contribute, Eshleman said.

The county likely will do a management plan or take other steps to better control boat mooring and the waters around that area, he said.

The county closed Phil Foster Park to swimming following damage from last summer's hurricanes, which siphoned off a lot beach sand, Eshleman said. Near the start of this year, the county then began an 18-month project to improve and expand park facilities, leaving only the boat ramps open.

As part of the work, the beach will be widened with new sand starting this fall, despite the bacterial problems, Eshleman said.

"It is certainly our intention to re-establish it as a swimming beach," he said.

Staff Writer David Fleshler and Orlando Sentinel Tallahassee Bureau Chief John Kennedy contributed to this report.

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Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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