Water Quality for Healthy Beaches and Shellfish Beds

Oyster

Oyster Photo credit: Texas Parks and Wildlife Division

Long-term Alliance Partnership Goal

Provide critical water quality information to Gulf of Mexico resource managers, in near-real time where appropriate, to help protect human health at beaches and to help ensure healthy shellfish growing waters.

The Governors’ Action Plan identifies three associated actions:

WQ-1: Improve harmful algal bloom detection and forecasting in the U.S. and Mexican Gulf States
WQ-2: Improve beach water quality management
WQ-3: Improve government efficiency in water quality monitoring.


 

WQ-1: Improve harmful algal bloom detection and forecasting in the U.S. and Mexican Gulf States

Action: Establish a cooperative, bi-national, coastal observing and decision support system in the Gulf of Mexico for the advanced detection and forecasting of red tide (K. brevis) and for notifying public health managers. Educate the public to help reduce the human health, natural resource, and economic impact of bloom events.

36-Month Outcomes:

  • Improve the current HAB Forecasting System off the southwest Florida coast to better identify the onset of blooms and better predict the transport of blooms.
  • Develop satellite detection, forecasting, and Internet-based notification capability for K. brevis off the southern coast of Texas.
  • Develop a satellite detection and Internet-based notification capability for K. brevis off the coast of the Mexican Gulf State of Veracruz.

WQ-2: Improve beach water quality management

Action: Ensure safe bathing beaches by advancing a practical, field–ready standardized bacterial source-tracking method(s) to determine coastal waters with public health impairment and to identify the priority sources of bacterial pollution to remediate.

36-Month Outcomes:

  • Conduct a peer-reviewed field evaluation of current bacterial source-tracking capabilities in an estuarine recreational area, and select two methodologies for intensive field-testing/validation.
  • Implement pilot testing of these two methods in five Gulf of Mexico estuaries with varying environmental conditions (preferably one location in each Gulf state).

WQ-3: Improve government efficiency in water quality monitoring

Action: Maximize the efficiency and utility of water quality monitoring efforts for local managers by coordinating and standardizing state and federal water quality data collection activities in the Gulf region.

36-Month Outcome:

  • Implement a regional pilot effort to coordinate and standardize state and federal water quality data collection activities in the Gulf region for one or more nutrient parameter(s) and/or one or more pathogens.

Highlights of Governors’ Action Plan Accomplishments

Mustang Island Photo credit: Texas Parks and Wildlife Division

Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) detection and forecasting in the Gulf of Mexico

The HAB Forecasting System provided by NOAA supplies information on the location, extent, and potential for development or movement of harmful algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Harmful Algal Blooms Observing System (HABSOS)

HABSOS is a regional, Web-based data and information dissemination tool. This Web site provides a secure data entry tool for collection of cell count observations of the algal species Karenia brevis.

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Contact Information

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Priority Issue Team Lead
Steve Wolfe
Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection
Phone: (850) 245-2102
Email: steven.wolfe@
dep.state.fl.us

Other State Leads
Mark Ornelas
Alabama Department of Environmental Management
Phone: (251) 450-3430
Email: meo@adem.
state.al.us

Dugan Sabins
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality
Phone: (225) 219-3553
Email: dugan.sabins@
la.gov

Kris Pintado
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality
Phone: (225) 219-3596
Email: Kris.Pintado@
la.gov

Henry Folmar
Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality
Phone: (601) 961-5529
Email: Henry_Folmar@
deq.state.ms.us

Alice Dossett
Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality
Phone: (601) 961-3964
Email: alice_dossett@
deq.state.ms.us

Mark Fisher
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Phone: (512) 239-4586
Email: MFISHER@
tceq.state.tx.us

James Simons
Texas Parks and Wildlife Division
Email: james.simons@
tpwd.state.tx.us

Federal Co-facilitators
Danny Wiegand
EPA - Gulf of Mexico Program
Phone: (228) 688-2041
Email: wiegand.danny@
epa.gov

Nancy Wallace
NOAA NOS Special Projects
Phone: (301)713-3000 x165
Email: nancy.wallace@
noaa.gov