33 U.S.C. § 1346 — Coastal recreation water quality monitoring and notification

(a)(1) Within 18 months after October 10, 2000, after consulting and cooperating with appropriate Federal, State, tribal, and local officials, including local health officials, and after public notice and an opportunity to comment, the Administrator must publish performance criteria for: (A) monitoring and assessing coastal recreation waters next to beaches or similar public access points to determine compliance with water-quality standards for pathogens and pathogen indicators, including available monitoring methods; and (B) promptly notifying the public, local governments, and the Administrator when those standards are exceeded or likely to be exceeded. (2) The criteria must require these activities as needed to protect public health and safety. (b)(1) The Administrator may give States and local governments grants to develop and carry out monitoring and notification programs for those waters. (2)(A) The Administrator may give a State or local government an implementation grant only if the program follows the criteria; the recipient prioritizes waters based on use and pathogen-related human-health risk; makes the prioritization factors available to the Administrator; lists the specific waters covered and identifies waters where fiscal limits prevent compliance with the criteria; and gives the public notice and an opportunity to comment. (B) The Administrator may give a local government an implementation grant only if, after one year from publication of the criteria, the Administrator finds that the State is not carrying out a compliant program, whether or not the State received a grant. (3)(A) A State grant recipient must report, in the form and at the intervals the Administrator sets, program data described in subsection (c) and actions taken to notify the public when standards were exceeded. (B) The State must identify each local government to which it has delegated or plans to delegate implementation responsibility, including waters for which that delegated authority would apply. (4)(A) Grants may cover up to 100 percent of program-development and implementation costs. (B) The Administrator may set a non-Federal share of no more than 50 percent after consulting State, tribal, and local representatives. The share may be cash or in-kind. (c) A grant-funded State or local program must identify: (1) the State’s coastal recreation waters, including public beaches and similar access points; (2) for a State program, the process for delegating implementation to local governments; (3) monitoring frequency and locations based on recreational-use periods, the nature and extent of use, nearby point and nonpoint pollution sources, and storm effects; (4)(A) methods for detecting harmful pathogen and indicator levels and (B) procedures for finding short-term harmful increases, including those related to storms; (5) prompt communication of the occurrence, nature, location, pollutants, and extent of an actual or likely standards exceedance to the Administrator and the responsible local official; (6) beach signs or equivalent communications giving notice that waters do not meet or are not expected to meet the standards; and (7) information about risks from water-contact activities in waters that do not meet the standards. (d) Within three years after October 10, 2000, each Federal agency with jurisdiction over covered coastal recreation waters must develop and implement, with public notice and comment, a program that protects public health and safety, follows the Administrator’s criteria, includes the report required by subsection (b)(3)(A), and addresses subsection (c). (e) The Administrator must create, maintain, and make publicly available electronically and otherwise a national database of coastal recreation-water pollution occurrences. It must include data reported under subsection (b)(3)(A)(i) and (d)(3), and other pathogen and indicator information supplied by State or local monitoring programs that the Administrator decides belongs in the database. (f) The Administrator must give States and local governments technical help in developing assessment and monitoring procedures for floatable material that protect public health and safety. (g)(1) Beginning no later than 18 months after the performance criteria are published, the Administrator must identify and maintain a list of specific covered waters. The list must show waters with criteria-consistent programs and waters without programs, including waters where fiscal limits prevent the State or Administrator from monitoring and notifying consistently with the criteria. (2) The list must be made public through the Federal Register and electronic media. (3) The Administrator must update it periodically as information becomes available. (h) If, after the three-year period beginning when the Administrator lists a State’s waters under subsection (g)(1)(B), the State still has no criteria-consistent program, the Administrator must conduct a program for those listed waters according to a priority ranking established by the Administrator. Appropriated grant funds may be used for monitoring and notification and related salaries, expenses, and travel. (i) Up to $30,000,000 may be appropriated for each fiscal year 2001 through 2005 for grants under subsection (b), including the Administrator’s implementation under subsection (h).