As the 2008 swimming season comes to a close, beach managers, scientists, and policy-makers from across the Great Lakes and the nation will converge on Duneland next week to share new findings, advances, challenges, and opportunities to improve beach health, at the eighth annual Great Lakes Beach Association (GLBA), to be held Sept. 15-17 at Indiana Dunes State Park and the Indiana Dunes Learning Center.

There will be workshops, presentations, and symposia enough for all 860 members of the GLBA: among them, representatives of local, county, and state public-health agencies, environmental groups, universities, and state and federal regulatory and research agencies. All eight Great Lakes states, as well as other Midwest and coastal states and Canada, are represented on the GLBA.

The mission of the GLBA is to pursue healthy beach water conditions in the Great Lakes and annual meetings are convened in a different Great Lakes state every year, typically coordinated with other regional or national meetings.

This year sessions will be hosted at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (INDU) and Indiana Dunes State Park (IDSP), two locations where seminal beach research has been conducted and where managers are committed to protecting public health at the beaches.

“The National Park Service is pleased to be a part of this effort in improving beach research,” INDU Superintendent Constantine Dillon said in a statement released by GLBA on Wednesday. “The public has a right to expect healthy beaches and we all play a part in making and keeping our waters safe.”

Since its inception, the GLBA has garnered national and international attention for its coordination among agencies and interests to promote beach health. This year attendees will include representatives from as far as Alaska, Texas, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Florida. Hawaii will be represented by Roger Fujioka of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “The Great Lakes beach area is the region of the country where there is maximum cooperation, education, and continuous update of all activities in that region via the Beachnet, a very active and effective means of communication.”

“Beachnet” is the host communication network and listserv for the GLBA at http://beachnet.info/

“The annual meeting is a great place for scientists and beach managers to take an in-depth look at monitoring data and present new ideas,” said former GLBA president Shannon Briggs. “We have group discussions with speakers and one-on-one conversations during the poster session that help us discover how we can work together to improve beach water quality and protect public health.”

Included on the agenda this year are seminars covering such topics as “Introduction to Beach Monitoring,” “Beach Sanitary Surveys,” “Source Tracking,” and “Predictive Models.” These seminars are designed to help beach managers stay abreast of the latest research and policies so as to better protect public health at their facilities. In addition, presentations and a poster session are planned at which findings will be discussed on the use of rapid methods of determining microbiological water quality, determining potential sources of fecal indicator bacteria to bathing beaches, sanitary surveys for beaches, and the use of predictive models for determining real-time water quality. Several intensive workshops will also be held on topics like monitoring data, fecal bacteria in sand, and rapid testing methods.

Posted 9/11/2008