This assistance agreement provides funding to erie county department of health (ecdh) to conduct sampling, monitoring, and analysis of water quality of lake erie, pennsylvania recreational beaches…

Environmental Protection Agency Region 3 awarded the Erie County Department of Health $216,000 on January 1, 2026, under the Beach Monitoring and Notification Program Implementation Grants (CFDA 66.472) to conduct sampling, monitoring, and analysis of water quality at Lake Erie recreational beaches in Pennsylvania prior to and during the recreational swimming season, and to communicate current water quality conditions to the public to safeguard recreational swimmers.

The department will monitor up to 9 permitted beaches operated by Pennsylvania DCNR. Activities include posting online and in-person swimming advisories when water quality thresholds for safe swimming are exceeded, developing improved beach monitoring protocols through annual meetings with similar organizations before the beach season, and using collected data to build a predictive model of water quality to support public health decision-making. The department must meet performance criteria established by the Federal Beach Act to remain eligible for future funding.

Regional Science Consortium, a 501(c)(3) organization, serves as sub-recipient, hiring and supervising laboratory interns and sample collection interns to conduct sampling seven days a week. This sampling supports creation and maintenance of a predictive modeling system for beach advisory warnings. Expected outcomes include informing the public of current permitted beach water quality and associated recreation risk, improving predictive capacity of a dynamic water quality model through new data, providing EPA with monitoring and beach advisory notification information, and authoring an annual summary report.

The award period runs through December 31, 2026, with place of performance in Pennsylvania.

This assistance agreement provides funding to erie county department of health (ecdh) to conduct sampling, monitoring, and analysis of water quality of lake erie, pennsylvania recreational beaches prior to and during the recreational swimming season. The grant will also support ecdh efforts to communicate the most current water quality conditions to the public to safeguard the health of recreational swimmers. Ecdh must meet performance criteria established by the federal beach act to remain eligible for future funding. Activities:under this award, ecdh will primarily monitor up to 9 permitted beaches operated by PA dcnr. Ecdh will also discuss and create current and improved beach monitoring protocols, using the newly collected data, during an annual meeting with similar organizations before the beach season. Ecdh will post online and in-person swimming advisories if water quality thresholds for safe swimming are exceeded. Ecdh will use the data collected to build a better predictive model of water quality at the beaches monitored to support public health.subrecipient:the funds will go to supporting the regional science consortium. The regional science consortium US a 501(c)(3) organization that supports the beach monitoring and sampling program by hiring and supervising laboratory interns and sample collection interns. The sampling through the consortium is completed seven days a week to aid in the creation and maintenance of a predictive modeling system for beach advisory warnings.outcomes:expected outcomes for this project include but are not limited to informing the public of current permitted beach water quality and the associated risk of recreation, improving the predictive capacity of a dynamic water quality model through inclusion of new data, providing EPA with monitoring and beach advisory notification information, and authoring an annual summary report. Beneficiaries of this work include residents and tourists who partake in recreational swimming at erie county, pennsylvania beaches.