Is the water at the Jersey Shore clean or dirty? Here’s what water testing tells us.

The few beachgoers on the shores of Wildwood Crest at daybreak barely notice as a pair of county health workers stop their white Ford Explorer.

In short order, the two take a water sample at the beach, put a stopper on the sterile plastic bottle, plop it into a cooler and head to the next spot.

Nine down.

More than 20 to go.

“People don’t see it, but we’re helping to protect them,” says Maryanne Mathis, a registered environmental health specialist trainee with the Cape May County Health Department, just after 6 a.m. on Monday, noting that “it feels good.”

“We’re doing the South run,” adds Spencer Hughes, a water sampler collector for the county. “We take samples from North Wildwood all the way to Cape May Point and we have another team today that’s doing our North run.”

In all, staff members in Cape May County will take small amounts of water at 61 guarded ocean beaches and 2 guarded bay beaches early Monday morning as part of weekly water quality testing. That’s part of a larger set of water samples collected at more than 200 beaches — including river and bay beaches in Cape May, Atlantic, Monmouth and Ocean counties — along New Jersey’s nearly 130 miles of coastline.

Water quality monitoring in New Jersey harkens back to 1974 but testing during peak beach season from mid-May to mid-September became much more standardized after 2004 as part of a change in the federal BEACH Act, which state lawmakers here helmed.

Beach sample data has in recent years yielded good news.

The water at Jersey Shore beaches appears to be exceptionally clean with no bacteria-related ocean beach closures this summer so far, just one beach closed to swimming in 2022 and no ocean beach closures before that as far back as August 2018.

“There’s days you can really see to the bottom while you’re standing waist deep in water,” said Hughes, who grew up in Stone Harbor.

While the data speaks favorably of the quality of New Jersey’s “ocean beaches” — what’s traditionally thought of as a beach with a sandy shore — these public areas can also be closed to swimmers due to other health risks such as floatable wash-ups (debris and medical waste) or other discharges complicated by the state’s dated combined sewer system. According to experts, cleaner ocean water may also be a symptom of climate change resulting in dryer conditions and less rain, thus less runoff pushing waste into the ocean via storm drains or over streets.

And some climate advocates believe New Jersey could create an even more stringent testing process to sample more regularly and receive results quicker. But, they acknowledge, those steps would also be expensive and access to equipment upgrades could present its own challenges.

‘Really extraordinary’ water quality

As of Aug. 1, New Jersey has had 28 “beach incidents,” defined as a sample containing a high level of contaminants — which places a ocean, river or bay beach under a swimming advisory.

Enterococci, the bacteria the state tests in coordination with local health departments, is one indicator of possible contamination that can include human or animal waste.

Barring a holiday and as long as there’s no thunder or lightning on the shore, testing is typically done on Mondays because that follows the largest influx of visitors to shore towns. If a high level of the bacteria is registered on a Monday, water is tested again the next day. If the follow-up sample is still above standard (more than 104 colony forming units of enterococci), the beach is closed to swimming prior to more testing.

Visitors are made aware of any advisories with signs posted at beach entrances.

The DEP also informs the public that contact with polluted water can cause gastrointestinal, respiratory, eye and ear, dermatological and flu-like symptoms.

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New Jersey beach data figures between 2005 and Aug. 1, 2023 — the span available on the state database — ranged between 41 and 245 annual “incidents,” with several years exceeding 100.

At this time last year, the state had recorded just 8 incidents. Local health workers and experts attributed more incidents this year to additional rainfall, but noted overall that the health of the Jersey Shore’s ocean water continues to be stellar.

“Our water quality in New Jersey is really extraordinary,” said Sheri Shifren, an environmental scientist for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the state’s beach monitoring program manager.

“That one bacterial exceedance closure on September 8 was in Atlantic City after Labor Day last year,” said Shifren. “And that was after three-and-a-half inches of rain. So the only time we ever see a problem is after rainfall and that’s usually temporary, especially at our ocean beaches.”

Room for improvement?

Today’s advisory and closure figures stand in stark contrast to the 1980s when reports of raw sewage outflows and medical waste wash-ups were steady at the Jersey Shore.

“Back in the 80s, the Monmouth County Health Department was one of the few in the country that actually tested beaches for water quality,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of nonprofit Clean Ocean Action. “In the 80s, there was a lot more pollution ... and I think one summer (in New Jersey) we had over 800 closures.”

Zipf said U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-6th Dist., and U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, along with U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, pushed for the passing of the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act which was signed by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

“It turned out that there were lots of beaches closed all over the country and it wasn’t just a New Jersey problem,” said Zipf.

The law has helped reduce contaminants throughout coastal waterways over the years, she noted. That — along with more public awareness on ocean health and additional legislation like New Jersey’s plastic bag ban — has been a boon for the water quality on our shores, she said.

Alexis Mraz, a public health professor at The College of New Jersey, said part of that has to do with the consistent testing and what New Jersey continues to test for.

“Most states are doing fairly similar water quality monitoring and testing for fecal indicator bacteria,” said Mraz of the type of samples taken. “But we are more regulated than the majority of states and I do truly think (the DEP) is doing a good job.”

While Clean Ocean Action was also complimentary of the state’s efforts and agrees that what’s tested for makes sense, organizers said there are other ways water quality monitoring can be improved in New Jersey.

Swarna Muthukrishnan, a water quality research director with Clean Ocean Action said one example is using qPCR “rapid” testing across the state, which would provide results in hours instead of the next day.

Jennifer Fairman, director of environmental health at Cape May County, said water sample results are sent to the DEP by Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.

New Jersey department officials then post the findings Tuesday afternoon.

“The qPCR (testing), which is one of the innovative of methodologies ... is definitely more expensive but the advantage is you can get the results of the samples being tested in like a quarter of the time,” said Muthukrishnan.

More regular and rapid testing, Clean Ocean Action leaders added, would also allow for sample collection to be done immediately following storms.

Testing only done Mondays and, if merited Tuesdays and thereafter, can mean elevated bacteria from runoff after a storm later in the week may not be detected or ever known at a Jersey Shore beach until the next required testing day, the group contended.

But that comes with its own costs.

Speaking of the price difference of equipment that’s currently standard, Mraz said she has her own on-campus “quantitative PCR” machine at TCNJ that cost between $20,000 and $35,000.

DEP officials said it has studied the viability of the rapid testing and previously closed beaches after rain in certain circumstances.

“We did used to have automatic closures after certain rainfalls at certain beaches ... and it was a very long time that we did studies after every rainfall before we were able to lift that and and realized that it wasn’t necessary anymore,” said Shifren.

Shifren said New Jersey’s health department follows U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations regarding how often and where it tests water quality at state beaches, accounting for factors like swimmer volume and nearby pollutants. The DEP also recommends beach visitors do not swim during or after rainfall near outfall pipes.

Before boarding the car at Wildwood Crest to continue sampling Cape May beaches, Hughes noted he was wary of testing after every storm if it prompts more swimming advisories than are necessary.

The EPA recommends sampling “as close to the high impact on our infrastructure, as well as being able to resample. So because New Jersey is such a tourist attraction at the beaches and people will come down just for the weekends, the weekends are the highest impact on our infrastructure,” Shifren said.

”Logistically,” she added later, “it’s just impossible to get out there every time it rains at every beach.”

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Steven Rodas may be reached at srodas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @stevenrodasnj.