How clean is your beach? Fecal bacteria levels up, but still within safety limits

KAILUA-KONA — Michael Kahookaulana connects a long green garden hose to a faucet behind the lifeguard stand at Laaloa Bay Magic Sands beach and rinses himself off before turning the hose on his dripping baby and bikini-clad wife.

A local and longtime surfer, Kahookaulana knows the importance of promptly removing the saltwater, sunblock residue and whatever else is lurking in the turquoise waters at one of the Big Island’s most popular beaches.

He also has a good idea — even without looking at the data provided by the state — which of the island’s beaches are cleanest, and when is the best time to avoid them.

“Here, there’s a lot of oil from suntan lotion,” he said Thursday. “On the Hamakua coast, you get river water mixed in and whatever it’s bringing down from the fields. … The quality of the water, you can really tell. I definitely know the water all around the island.”

So does Neil Mukai. The only state environmental health specialist on the island charged with water sampling, Mukai spends his workday driving his state truck beach-to-beach, surf-spot-to-surf-spot, dipping up water in his battered metal bucket.

Despite some short-term spikes in fecal bacteria, waters around the Big Island show levels well below those considered unsafe. But most of the average readings for enterococci — the primary measure of contamination used by the U.S. Environmental Management Agency — have been steadily increasing over the past 10 years.

In fact, average beach fecal bacteria levels have increased five-fold between 2006 and 2016 at key West Hawaii beaches and 134 percent on the Hilo side.

That’s according to a West Hawaii Today analysis of data from 304 water samples taken in May 2006, 2011 and 2016 at beaches and surf spots around the island. The state Department of Health periodically tests sites and publishes the test results on its website, http://emdweb.doh.hawaii.gov/CleanWaterBranch/WaterQualityData/default.aspx.

Stretched thin on testing

Mukai transfers some of the water into a vial. Then he jots down the date and time of his water test, local conditions such as the clarity of the water, incoming or outgoing tide, whether there are a few or a lot of swimmers and the weather conditions. Using a field test kit, he notes pH, turbidity, salinity and dissolved oxygen.

He later takes his water samples to a private lab, where other measures are taken, including the levels of indicators of human fecal pollution such as enterococci and Clostridium perfringens.

Contact with contaminated water can lead to ear or skin infections, urinary tract infections, gastrointestinal ailments, pinkeye, respiratory infections, meningitis and hepatitis and other more serious pathogenic infections. The pathogens responsible for these diseases can be bacteria, viruses, protozoans or parasites that live in the gastrointestinal tract and are shed in the feces of warm-blooded animals.

The enterococci and Clostridium perfringens themselves don’t cause the problem but are indicators that more dangerous critters could be lurking.

There are some 95 test sites on the Big Island, but most are not tested regularly. There are 69 sites that are supposed to be monitored on a twice-weekly (core sites) or biweekly (rotational sites) basis, according to the State of Hawaii Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report approved by the EPA in 2014.

In fact, testing is down considerably over the past years, due in part to the retirement of one of two environmental health specialists. Budget cuts meant the lost specialist wasn’t replaced, leaving Mukai traversing the island and trying to keep up with the necessary testing.

Only 82 tests were conducted in May 2016, compared to 160 in 2011 and 91 in 2006.

Watson Okubo, monitoring and analysis section supervisor for the Clean Water Branch, said the agency has been hesitant to add a position because the funding source is not guaranteed. He wouldn’t like to hire a specialist one year and have to lay him or her off the next, he said.

“The ones that are heavily used, they’re the ones we test,” Okubo said, “because that’s where the people go.”

Beach Act grants are given to states to develop and implement beach monitoring and notification programs. This year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the grants, allocated $309,000 for the entire state of Hawaii.

Reading test results

Suitable levels for enterococci in marine waters are 35 or fewer colony forming units per 100 milliliters of seawater for a 30 day average and 104 cfu/100 ml for a single sample, according to the EPA.

Clostridium perfringens, or CP, is a tracer for human sewage and considered a secondary indicator to help confirm high bacterial indicator counts. A level of 7 cfu in 100 ml of seawater, coupled with high enterococci levels, is a cause for concern.

Okubo said the state is allowed to use CP as a secondary indicator because in Hawaii, there’s a greater chance the enterococci can replicate outside the human body and it also may be found in soil, plants, decaying organic matter and sand. And, it can be shed by nonhuman animals in their fecal matter.

If a sample site shows a high score, it’s evaluated to see if the spike was an anomaly. The Health Department doesn’t have the authority to close beaches, but it can issue brown-water advisories to let the public know there’s a problem. The state posts brown water advisories on its website and puts up signs at the suspect beach.

High levels at popular beaches

Kahaluu Beach Park was spiking at 53 cfu/100 ml on May 25, the latest data available. That’s high if it were the average for the month, but not of concern for a single sample.

On Thursday, it wasn’t a concern for bathers and snorkelers, either.

“It looks pretty clear,” noted John Smith, who was vacationing with his family from Montana.

Smith said he’s swum in waters ranging from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast, and he’s always felt comfortable coming back to Hawaii beaches.

So has Katheryn Passenelli. A repeat visitor from Wyoming, she was taking it easy at Laaloa on Thursday. Laaloa’s bacteria count has been hovering around 10 53 cfu/100 ml.

“My children have been swimming in it, my grandchildren have been swimming in it,” she said. “I don’t have any concerns.”

The most recent test results available, in late May and early June, show three East Hawaii sites with the highest levels of fecal bacteria — all above what the EPA considers unacceptable. Richardson Ocean Center came in the highest, with 178 cfu/100 ml, followed by Honolii Cove, with 164 cfu/100 ml and Onekahakaha Beach, with 137 cfu/100 ml. All three had just 1 cfu/100 ml of CP, however.

The rainier east side of the island is more likely to have spikes caused by stormwater runoff and river discharge.

Stormwater runoff is considered the largest contributor to fecal bacteria at the beaches, and is a target of environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Surfrider Foundation.

NRDC’s annual analysis of water quality data at 3,485 coastal U.S. beaches monitored in 2013, the most recent data available, found that 10 percent of all monitoring samples exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s most protective benchmark for assessing swimmer safety, known as the Beach Action Value, or BAV.

The report, “Testing the Waters,” (https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ttw2014.pdf), ranked Hawaii eighth in the nation for beach water quality, with 7 percent of samples exceeding the BAV.

The testing procedures, which are similar across the nation as states strive to meet national standards, aren’t without their own problems.

“The long incubation time required to grow the colonies creates an unavoidable lag in decision-making. People may have been swimming for two days before the colonies are counted and before officials make a decision to close or open the beach,” said Elizabeth Halliday, in a 2008 Woods Hole Institute article titled, “Testing the waters and closing beaches: Researchers search for faster, better methods to detect harmful bacteria.”

“And since contamination is often transient, by the time the beach is closed, the waters already may be perfectly safe for swimming,” she added.

Public health, public help

Officials want to keep people informed and away from suspect swimming areas without creating a panic.

A Florida TV weatherman, just last week, inspired a scare along the Gulf of Mexico by incorrectly reporting a flesh-eating bacteria problem at an area beach, after health officials posted advisories based on high fecal bacteria levels. The announcement had tourists canceling their travel plans for the holiday weekend.

Flesh-eating bacteria has shown up in isolated cases on the Big Island. A man diagnosed with flesh-eating bacteria after swimming in 2013 in the hot pond at Ahalanui Beach Park with a open wound on his shin received $2,816 in a settlement of his lawsuit.

That beach scored an average 10 cfu/100 ml of enterococci in May, 2016, compared to 39.58 cfu/100 ml in 2011 and 52.21 cfu/100 ml in 2006.

There’s a lot people can do to help themselves, both to help keep beaches clean and to avoid infection when swimming, Okubo said.

Converting from cesspools to sanitary septic systems is one way. The state has recently outlawed cesspools as an option for new construction and is offering tax rebates for those who want to upgrade their cesspools to septic systems.

Cesspools are basically just holes in the ground where sewage is sent.

“It’s just pumped into the ground and things get flowing every which way,” Okubo said.

There are about 36,000 residential and large-capacity cesspools on the Big Island.

Not dumping contaminants into sanitary storm drains is another way the public can help. Picking up after your dog helps keep it out of the sea. “People with dogs, please pick up your poop,” Okubo said. “Don’t throw it in the storm drain or over your fence into a stream.”

The most important precaution when swimming at area beaches is to avoid swimming with open cuts. Practicing personal hygiene protects yourself and your fellow swimmers.

“Protect yourself,” Okubo said. “Make sure your skin is intact.”

Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.