Steven Spielberg never made a cult-favorite thriller about the dangers of sewage-infested waters.
But the amount of fecal matter lurking in the water surpassed federal safety recommendations at least one time in 2024 at nearly six in 10 of the 66 Rhode Island beaches tested, new data shows.
Even more alarming: 25 state and local beaches exceeded federal water quality safety thresholds on 25% or more of the testing days, according to a report published on July 7 by Environment America’s Research & Policy Center.
“It’s absurd in today’s society we need to be worried about crap in the water, literally,” said Rex Wilmouth, state director for the Rhode Island chapter of the nonprofit research and advocacy firm. “Even one day is one day too many.”
Wilmouth unveiled the disturbing findings at a press conference at Oakland Beach in Warwick Friday morning. The Rhode Island Department of Health closed the city-run saltwater beach on June 24 due to high bacteria counts, though it was reopened two days later. On Thursday, two other Warwick swimming areas, at City Park and Conimicut Point beaches, were closed due to high bacteria accounts detected by the Rhode Island Department of Health.
The state health department samples and tests water at state and local saltwater beaches during the summer season each year and notifies the public if unsafe bacteria levels are detected. Swimming in contaminated water can cause gastrointestinal illnesses, respiratory disease, eye and ear infections and skin rashes, with an estimated 57 million cases of illness nationwide each year. However, a majority of the illnesses go unreported.
Environment America’s report compares state and federally reported levels of fecal contamination against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s health safety threshold, or Beach Action Value, to determine which beaches may pose health risks to swimmers, and how often.
Of the 3,187 beaches tested nationwide in 2024, 61% showed unsafe levels of contamination on at least one testing day. And one in seven of those tested were marked by dangerous levels of bacteria at least 25% of testing days.
And that’s just on days when waters were sampled — suggesting infected waterways were contaminated even more often than data suggests, Wilmouth said. Take Tiverton’s Fogland Beach, for example, which surpassed the federally recommended bacteria cap on five of seven days it was tested in 2024.
“There were a lot more days it was probably unsafe as well,” Wilmouth said.
Other repeat offenders in 2024 included Matunuck Town Beach in South Kingstown and Jamestown’s Mackerel Cove Beach, which both exceeded recommended bacteria levels on roughly two-thirds of testing days, along with Narragansett’s members-only Dune’s Club. State-run beaches were not immune either: Scarborough State Beach North showed unsafe levels of bacteria on 38% of the 24 testing days, according to the data.
“The ocean doesn’t care if it’s a wealthy area or not,” he said. “People can get really sick.”
The ocean doesn’t care if it’s a wealthy area or not,” he said. “People can get really sick.
Water pollution has become an increasing problem nationwide as a result of development that increases the risk of stormwater runoff flowing into coastal waters, and aging sewer infrastructure prone to overflows and spills.
In 2024, Rhode Island saw 171 days of one or more beach closures over a beach season marked by nearly 15 inches of rain, according to state health department data. The year 2023 was marked by 246 days of one or more beach closures — the highest since 2006, when there were 351 closure days.
So far this year, five local beaches have been closed for a combined 22 days — not including this week’s closures at swimming areas that have not yet reopened in the wake of recent, heavy rainfall.
Temporary beach closures are more than just an inconvenience to swimmers; they also jeopardize a key part of the state’s tourism-dependent economy, and that of shellfishermen, whose livelihoods depend on access to key fishing grounds free from contamination.
“We’re the Ocean State,” Wilmouth said. “We need to make sure we are not polluting our waterways.”
The solution relies largely on federal and state funding, both for regular water quality monitoring, and even more importantly, sewage and stormwater infrastructure upgrades that can minimize overflows and prevent polluted runoff from seeping into public waterways. The 2021 Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act provided $27.4 billion in direct funding and future appropriations for sewage and stormwater projects nationwide. But some of that funding is now at risk under actions taken by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the EPA pegs the total cost for necessary wastewater infrastructure at $630 billion.
Environment America’s annual data release on unsafe bacteria levels in swimming waters comes with a new call to action this year: asking residents in each state to sign a petition urging their governors to set firm deadlines for ensuring state waters are safe for swimming, fulfilling a goal set by the Clean Water Act in 1983.
The number of people who signed the petition in Rhode Island Friday was not immediately available.
Wilmouth acknowledged the progress that Rhode Island, and its municipalities, have made toward wastewater infrastructure upgrades, such as the Narragansett Bay Commission’s Combined Sewer Overflow project. Now in its third and final phase, the decades-old, $1.7 billion project relies on a network of underground tunnels that will run over 5 miles once completed to capture sewage and stormwater runoff during heavy rainfall and prevent it from being released untreated into the bay. The project is expected to be finished in 2026.
“We need to continue doing things like that,” Wilmouth said of the federally funded project. “The biggest thing is having the funding. These are not small, or inexpensive projects.”
But, he added, the health risks to swimmers from frolicking in fecal waters are preventable.
“I shouldn’t be releasing a report like this in today’s world,” he said.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
