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…

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. This award provides $184,797 of federal funds; $29,203 is contingent upon availability.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 subaward will be granted to the regional science consortium. The regional science consortium is a 501(c)(3) organization that supports the beach monitoring and sampling program via hiring and supervising laboratory- and sample collection interns. Sampling by the consortium occurs seven days a week.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 county of erie, pennsylvania beaches.