MDI town quits healthy beaches monitor program

MOUNT DESERT – Frustrated by fluctuating counts of bacteria that have required the occasional closure of Seal Harbor Beach, town selectmen decided last week to pull out of the Maine Healthy Beaches Program.

This decision has caused consternation with officials from the program and the Mount Desert Island Water Quality Coalition, a nonprofit group that has helped test the water.

They have documented several cases of swimming-related sickness since 2003. Tests have found high levels of enterococcus bacteria, which indicate the presence of fecal matter in the water. This can cause stomach illness, rashes and pinkeye.

“Now we won’t know, really, what hazards people face on the beach,” Jane Disney, director of the MDI Water Quality Coalition, said Thursday. “We won’t. It’ll be swim at your own risk, for sure.”

The Maine Healthy Beaches Program is a partnership among several state agencies, including the Bureau of Health and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, and is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Towns can voluntarily decide to join – or to drop out.

“It’s been, I thought, a really well-functioning partnership,” Esperanza Stancioff, coordinator of the Maine Healthy Beaches Program, said Friday. “A lot of resources were brought by all parties to try to figure out [the pollution].”

For the past three summers, crews from the MDI Water Quality Coalition have worked with the town to monitor the beach and Stanley Brook, which has its outlet on the beach.

Town staff and coalition workers have independently tested for, and found, enterococcus bacteria.

High readings on several days last year resulted in the town’s decision to close the beach, and to post a sign to alert the public.

The sign and other educational information were donated by Maine Healthy Beaches Program, which also provided some laboratory equipment for water testing and planned to give partial funding to the town for a summer intern.

“We’re just there to provide all these resources to protect public health and to seek out answers to pollution problems if we can,” Stancioff said. “It’s difficult for any one group to go forward without the town’s support.”

But selectmen, asserting that the true cause of the high bacteria readings and the need for beach closures was debatable, said that they no longer wanted to provide that support.

“I think our problem as selectmen is that we were getting conflicting reports,” board Chairman Rick Savage said. “We just decided that it was too confusing for us to maintain the program we had with them.”

The selectman said the town planned to install a permanent warning sign on the beach to alert visitors of potential hazards.

“It would be wise for people to use their good judgment and take precautions,” Savage said.

Patrick Smallidge, a selectman who grew up in the area and remembers when children swimming in the harbor would find clumps of toilet paper in their hair, said that the water quality is much higher today.

“Frankly, we thought the threat was overrated,” Smallidge said. “Other than pinkeye, I can never ever remember anybody ever getting sick. We want to see a real hazard. If we had indications that people were getting sick, we’d close it in a heartbeat.”

Disney, who said that the coalition has invested “tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of staff and intern hours” in Stanley Brook and Seal Harbor Beach since 2003, maintained that the town may be acting too hastily in their decision to drop out of the program.

“Our data has never been called into question,” she said. “It’s so huge, what we put in … I feel that the town of Mount Desert needs to revisit the issue.”

According to Disney, recent examples of waterborne illness include

. Three cases of the intestinal illness gastroenteritis and two of conjunctivitis among a group of YMCA campers in 2003.

. Several cases of gastroenteritis in children in 2004.

“Perhaps people are feeling a little complacent,” Disney said. “The risks are different now. I just think there’s a wider opportunity for exposure to pathogens.”

The decision to quit the program was made at last Monday’s regular selectmen’s meeting, but no one from the MDI Water Quality Coalition or Maine Healthy Beaches Program was notified that it would be on the agenda, Disney said.

Town officials said that they likely would continue to have the public works department continue its own water monitoring.

Stancioff said that she hoped the town would reconsider their decision and rejoin the program.

“I certainly think there are some pollution issues in Mount Desert, based on the data,” she said. “I’m hopeful that it can be worked out on behalf of the public and the town.”