National BEACH Conference: Report on Action Items - October 15-16, 1997
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The purpose of this report is to present a list of potential "action items" related to beach health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) cosponsored the first national BEACH conference on October 15-16, 1997, in Annapolis, Maryland. Numerous topics related to beach health were presented and discussed at the conference. Participants were asked to identify needs for technical assistance, assign priorities for short- and long-term actions, and, where possible, recommend protocols and procedures to encourage greater consistency among jurisdictions in beach health issues. To assist this process, three concurrent "breakout" sessions met the afternoon of the first day and the morning of the second. A copy of the agenda is included at the end of this report and a complete proceedings document will be published in early fall 1998. After the conference, EPA compiled a draft list of action items identified by conference participants. Participants were then asked to review the list, add any missing elements, and comment on which action items should receive the highest priority. Approximately 120 draft lists were sent out, and 41 were returned. This report will be an important source of information for EPA's long-term planning. The action items described in the following sections are organized according to the three breakout sessions: Session 1: Standards, Methods, and Indicators; Session 2: Monitoring; Session 3: Risk Assessment and Communication. Within each section, each action is described. Then, a summary chart shows the number of responses for each priority category. "Short-term" means approximately 1 to 2 years; "long-term" means 3 to 5 years or longer. Finally, a list of selected individual comments is included for each action. Table 1 on page 19 summarizes all the responses.