Healthy Beaches Are Good for the Economy.

• Position: Brief Article

Warm sandy beaches and bright blue waters call to us during the long cold winter. And potential tourists give little thought to stomach cramps, diarrhea, hepatitis or other ailments that might mar that siren call. States are hoping to keep it that way.

The Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf Coast and Great Lakes beaches are major tourist attractions and strong contributors to state economies. California beaches attract tourists who provide $10.6 billion in revenues, support 500,000 jobs and generate $1 billion in taxes each year. Alabama's Gulf of Mexico beaches are among the state's greatest economic and environmental assets. The tourist economy there provides more than 40,000 jobs and over $1 billion in revenue annually.

Unfortunately, there was a 35 percent increase in beach closings nationwide due to high bacteria levels in 1999 over the previous year, according to the EPA's Beach Program, and 50 percent more than two years before. At least 459 beaches nationwide were affected by at least one advisory or closing.

State legislatures are trying to address one of the leading causes of contamination: storm water runoff after a rain, which may carry sewage from overflowing treatment systems, animal wastes, fertilizers, pesticides, trash and other pollutants from lawns, farms, streets and construction sites.

Following a sewage treatment plant malfunction in 1985 that...