Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act, 47154-47162 [E8-18739]
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47154
Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 13, 2008 / Notices
(Final Rule for Locomotive and Marine
Engines); in 40 CFR part 1042, subparts
C, D, G and H; was approved 07/16/
2008; OMB Number 2060–0287; expires
07/31/2009.
EPA ICR Number 1284.08; NSPS for
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(Renewal); in 40 CFR part 370; was
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EPA ICR Number 1425.07;
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CERCLA section 123 (Renewal); in 40
CFR part 310; was approved 07/16/
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EPA ICR Number 2277.02; NESHAP
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EPA ICR Number 1679.06; NESHAP
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expires 07/31/2011.
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was approved 07/23/2008; OMB
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OMB Number 2030–0045; expires 07/
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Disapproved
EPA ICR Number 1748.05; State Small
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Form (Renewal); was disapproved 07/
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Withdrawn
EPA ICR Number 2170.02; Air
Emissions Reporting Requirements
(AERR) (Final Rule); was withdrawn
from OMB on 07/28/2008.
Dated: August 7, 2008.
Sara Hisel-McCoy,
Director, Collection Strategies Division.
[FR Doc. E8–18736 Filed 8–12–08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560–50–P
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
[OW–FRL–8703–9]
Beaches Environmental Assessment
and Coastal Health Act
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of Expected Changes to
the Grant Allocation Formula for
Awarding Grants Under the BEACH Act.
AGENCY:
SUMMARY: The Beaches Environmental
Assessment and Coastal Health
(BEACH) Act authorizes EPA to award
program development and
implementation grants to eligible States,
Territories, Tribes, and local
governments to support microbiological
monitoring and notification of the
public of the potential for exposure to
disease-causing microorganisms in
coastal recreation waters. EPA awards
BEACH Act grant funds to eligible
States, Territories and Tribes each year
using an allocation formula to
determine the amount of federal funds
available for award to each State and
Territory. EPA is considering changes to
this allocation formula for the award of
grants in 2010 and is providing States,
Territories, and Tribes advance notice of
expected changes.
ADDRESSES: EPA recognizes that
reviewers may wish to express their
views and should send them to the
Docket. Submit your views, identified
by Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OW–2008–
0539, by one of the following methods:
• www.regulations.gov: Follow the
on-line instructions for submitting
scientific views.
• E-mail: OW-Docket@epa.gov.
• Mail: U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency; EPA Docket Center
(EPA/DC). Water Docket, MC 2822T;
PO 00000
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1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC 20460.
• Hand Delivery: EPA Docket Center,
1301 Constitution Ave, NW., EPA West,
Room 3334, Washington, DC. Such
deliveries are only accepted during the
Docket’s normal hours of operation, and
special arrangements should be made
for deliveries of boxed information.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lars
Wilcut, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW.,
(4305T), Washington, DC 20460.
Telephone: (202) 566–0447. E-mail:
wilcut.lars@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
A. What Is the BEACH Act?
The Beaches Environmental
Assessment and Coastal Health
(BEACH) Act of 2000 amends the Clean
Water Act to better protect public health
at our Nation’s beaches through
improved water quality standards and
beach monitoring and notification
programs. The BEACH Act authorizes
EPA to award grants to develop and
implement monitoring and public
notification programs for coastal
recreation waters, consistent with EPA’s
required performance criteria. EPA
published the required performance
criteria for grants in its ‘‘National Beach
Guidance and Required Performance
Criteria for Grants’’ (EPA–823–B–02–
004), on July 19, 2002. Currently, all 35
eligible States and Territories operate
beach monitoring and notification
programs using BEACH Act grant funds.
B. Who Is Eligible To Apply for BEACH
Act Grants?
Coastal and Great Lake States and
Territories that meet the requirements of
CWA section 406(b)(2)(A) are eligible
for BEACH Act grants. These are the
States adjacent to the Great Lakes, the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the
Gulf of Mexico as well as the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the
Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa,
and the Commonwealth of the Northern
Mariana Islands. Tribes may also be
eligible for BEACH Act grants. In order
to be eligible, a Tribe must have coastal
recreation waters adjacent to beaches or
similar points of access that are used by
the public, and the Tribe must
demonstrate that it meets the ‘‘treatment
in the same manner as a State’’ criteria
in CWA Section 518(e) for the purposes
of receiving a Section 406 BEACH Act
grant.
C. How Much Funding Is Available?
After the first year of funding of
approximately two million dollars in
2001, funding for the years between
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Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 13, 2008 / Notices
2002 and 2007 has been approximately
$10 million per year distributed among
all eligible States, Territories, and
Tribes. The actual grant total awards are
$1,812,580 in 2001; $9,999,990 in 2002;
$9,935,000 in 2003; $9,891,000 in 2004;
$9,870,000 in 2005; $9,803,100 in 2006;
$9,900,000 in 2007; and $9,745,500 in
2008.
II. Current Allocation Formula
A. Why Did EPA Develop an Allocation
Formula?
BEACH Act grants are awarded
annually to eligible States, Territories
and Authorized Tribes for the purpose
of running a continuing environmental
program for beach monitoring and
notification; therefore, it is appropriate
to award these grants using an
allocation formula rather than to award
the grants competitively. EPA uses an
allocation formula in other State and
Tribal continuing environmental
programs for which EPA awards grants.
EPA chose to develop and use an
allocation formula for BEACH grants to
help ensure objectivity in allocations to
the 35 eligible States and Territories. On
an annual basis, EPA reserves $50,000
for eligible tribes from the total grant
amount appropriated. To date, one tribe
has applied for and received a grant
award. Should other Tribes become
eligible, EPA will reserve more funds for
grants to Tribes.
B. How Did EPA Develop the Current
Allocation Formula?
In 2001, EPA, with assistance from
the Association of State and Interstate
Water Pollution Control Administrators
(ASIWPCA), held a conference call with
States to inform them that EPA was
developing an allocation formula for use
in distributing BEACH Act funds. In
developing an allocation formula, EPA
wanted a method that distributed more
funds to States and Territories that had
a greater number of highly-used
beaches, because EPA expected that
monitoring needs would be greater in
these States. EPA also wanted an
allocation formula that used verifiable
data for each of the various factors in
the formula. EPA developed a series of
possible allocation scenarios, assuming
at the time that the funding would
approach the full authorized amount of
$30 million. EPA then had follow-up
calls with States, obtained their views
and input, and developed a proposed
allocation formula. EPA then consulted
with the States, the Coastal States
Organization, and ASIWPCA on the
proposed formula. Although some
States and the contacted associations
thought the allocation formula could be
improved upon, they were generally
satisfied with this approach because it
used the most reliable data then
available. There was not an agreement
among parties on a better or preferred
method.
C. What Is the Current Allocation
Formula?
The current allocation formula is used
to allocate funds to States or Territories
where the monitoring needs are greatest,
that is, towards States and Territories
with more miles of beaches that are
open for longer periods during the year,
and are used by more people. EPA
considers the miles of beaches and the
length of a beach season to be good
indicators of the need for (and cost of)
monitoring and notification. A State or
Territory with many beaches open for
the entire year would be expected to
monitor more than a State or Territory
with few beaches only open during the
summer. EPA considers beach use
(represented by the number of people
who visit and use the beach) to be a
good indicator of the importance of
monitoring and notification to protect
public health at beaches. Notifications
of exceedance of water quality standards
at beaches with more people would be
expected to prevent more cases of
illness, and thus reduce the overall
public health risk nationally more than
notifications at beaches that experience
low visitation. This is consistent with
the requirement in the BEACH Act that
grantees ‘‘prioritize the use of grant
47155
funds for particular coastal recreation
waters based on the use of the water and
the risk to human health presented by
pathogens and pathogen indicators’’ and
the beach prioritization step in EPA’s
‘‘National Beach Guidance and
Performance Criteria for Grants’’ See
CWA Section 406(b) (2) A (ii) and EPA–
823-B–02–004. Chapter 3 of this
document describes the risk-based
beach evaluation and classification
process, including the evaluation steps
and recommended information that a
State, Territory, or Tribe should
consider when ranking beaches.
The current allocation formula sums
three parts. The first part is a base
amount for all States and Territories that
varies with the length of the beach
season. This base amount is scaled in
$50,000 increments from $150,000 for
States with the shortest beach season to
$300,000 for States and Territories with
the longest beach season. States and
Territories with long seasons are
allotted two times the base amount of
grant funds as those with short beach
seasons (Table 1). The second part of the
formula allots half of the total remaining
funds (i.e. what is left after subtracting
the total base amount) on the basis of
the ratio of shoreline miles in a State or
Territory to the total length of shoreline
miles across the entire United States.
For example, if a State has 4 percent of
the total coastal and Great Lakes
shoreline, that State would be allotted 4
percent of 50 percent (or 2 percent) of
total funds remaining after the Agency
allotted the base amount (i.e. part one of
the formula) to all States and Territories.
The third part of the formula allots the
remaining funds on the basis of the ratio
of coastal population in a State or
Territory to the total coastal population.
For example, if a State has 2 percent of
the total coastal and Great Lakes
population, that State would receive 2
percent of 50 percent (or 1 percent) of
the total funds remaining after the
Agency allotted the funds for the first
two parts. The following table
summarizes the allocation formula:
TABLE 1—BEACH GRANT ALLOCATION FACTORS
The part of the allocation is—
Beach season length ............................
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For the factor—
<3 months: $150,000 (States and Territories with a season <3 months receive season-based funding
only.)
3–4 months: $200,000.
5–6 months: $250,000.
>6 months: $300,000.
50% of funds remaining after allocation of season-based funding.
50% of funds remaining after allocation of season-based funding.
Shoreline miles .....................................
Coastal population ................................
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47156
Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 13, 2008 / Notices
EPA reserves $50,000 from the total
amount appropriated for grants to
eligible Tribes. To date, one tribe has
applied for and received a grant award.
Should other Tribes become eligible,
EPA will reserve more funds for grants
to Tribes.
The current allocation formula was
originally developed assuming EPA
would receive the full amount of funds
authorized to be appropriated for grants
under the BEACH Act ($30 million). At
an annual appropriation level of $30
million, the beach season component of
the formula ($8.15 million) would
represent 27% of the annually available
funds. At this funding level, the beach
length and beach use components
would each be $10.92 million,
representing together 73% of the
allocated funds. Since 2002, annual
appropriations for BEACH Act grants
have been approximately $10 million.
At an annual appropriation level of $10
million, the beach season component
(still $8.15 million) represents 82% of
the appropriation, and the beach length
and beach use components ($0.92
million each) together represent 18% of
the available funds. Therefore, because
the appropriation has been much lower
than the authorization, the ratio of the
different components of the allocation
formula has shifted from being roughly
equal, which was the intention, to being
heavily dominated by the beach season
length component. The result is that a
State or Territory with a longer beach
season would receive substantially more
money than a State or Territory in a
colder climate with a shorter beach
season but with more beaches and more
people using them.
D. How Are the Factors in the Allocation
Formula Quantified?
1. Beach Season Length
EPA selected beach season length as
a factor because it represents the
amount of time in a year when a
government would conduct its
monitoring and notification program.
The longer the beach season, the more
resources a government would need to
conduct monitoring and notification.
The Agency obtained the information on
the length of a beach season from the
‘‘National Health Protection Survey of
Beaches’’ for the States or Territories
that submitted a completed survey.
However, because Alaska was not
included in the survey, EPA estimated
the beach season length for Alaska on
the basis of air and water temperature,
available information on recreation
activities, and data from the ‘‘1993
National Water Based Recreation
Survey.’’ EPA then grouped the States
and Territories into four categories of
beach season lengths as shown in Table
2.
TABLE 2—DISTRIBUTION OF STATES BY BEACH SEASON CATEGORY
For beaches in—
The beach season category is—
Alaska .....................................................................................................................................................................
Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina ..........................................................
American Samoa, California, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Northern Mariana, Puerto Rico, Texas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
<3 months.
3–4 months.
2. Shoreline Miles
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EPA wanted to use miles of beach as
a factor because it is indicative of the
geographical extent over which a
government would be expected to
conduct monitoring. The more miles of
beaches, the more resources a
government would need to conduct
monitoring and notification. EPA did
not have current beach mileage data in
a format that could be used for the
allocation formula. Therefore, EPA has
used shoreline miles as a surrogate for
beach miles in the allocation formula.
Shoreline miles data overestimate beach
miles in some States and Territories;
however, EPA and States agreed that
this is the best way to estimate beach
miles as it was the best available data at
that time. EPA used the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) publication,
‘‘The Coastline of the United States,’’ to
quantify shoreline miles.
3. Coastal Population
EPA wanted to use beach use as a
factor because it reflects the magnitude
of potential human exposure to
pathogens at recreational beaches. In
short, States and Territories can prevent
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more total illnesses when they notify
the public of pollution problems at
heavily-used beaches than when they
notify the public at less-used beaches.
EPA presently uses the coastal
population of counties (from the 2000
Census data) to quantify the coastal
population that is wholly or partially
within the State’s or Territory’s legallydefined coastal zone, as a surrogate for
actual beach usage.
E. What Do States Receive Under the
Current Allocation Formula?
For 2008, the total available for
BEACH Act grants to States and
Territories was $9,745,500. EPA
reserved $50,000 for authorized Tribes.
Assuming all 35 States and Territories
with coastal recreation waters apply and
meet the eligibility requirements for
implementation grants (and have met
the statutory grant conditions applicable
to previously awarded CWA section 406
grants), the allocation of the funds for
fiscal year 2008 is the following:
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5–6 months.
9–12 months.
TABLE 3—DISTRIBUTION OF 2008
BEACH ACT GRANTS
For the State or Territory of—
Alabama ....................................
Alaska .......................................
American Samoa ......................
California ...................................
Connecticut ...............................
Delaware ...................................
Florida .......................................
Georgia .....................................
Guam ........................................
Hawaii .......................................
Illinois ........................................
Indiana ......................................
Louisiana ..................................
Maine ........................................
Maryland ...................................
Massachusetts ..........................
Michigan ...................................
Minnesota .................................
Mississippi ................................
New Hampshire ........................
New Jersey ...............................
New York ..................................
North Carolina ..........................
Northern Marianas ....................
Ohio ..........................................
Oregon ......................................
Pennsylvania ............................
Puerto Rico ...............................
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The year
2008 allocation is—
$258,390
147,650
297,460
514,720
220,500
207,730
526,320
282,700
297,930
318,590
240,290
202,730
320,270
252,220
266,900
251,930
276,210
201,190
253,680
201,450
275,480
347,300
299,150
298,670
220,780
225,970
219,650
324,080
Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 13, 2008 / Notices
First, States and Territories fund their
beach monitoring and notification
programs using funds awarded in the
The year
previous year. For example, a State will
For the State or Territory of—
2008 alloca- use its 2007 grant to fund 2008 beach
tion is—
monitoring and notification. The reason
Rhode Island ............................
209,650 for this is the timing of the award of
South Carolina ..........................
293,270 annual BEACH Act grants. EPA
Texas ........................................
379,140 typically receives its appropriation
U.S. Virgin Islands ....................
298,510 between December and March of each
Virginia ......................................
274,650
Washington ...............................
267,980 fiscal year. Once EPA is aware of the
Wisconsin .................................
222,420 total appropriation for BEACH Act
grants, EPA publishes a notice of the
F. How Much Are States Spending Using availability of grants. States and
Territories apply for the grants, and the
the Current Allocation Formula?
grants are awarded by summer with a
All 35 eligible States and Territories
project period that generally covers the
have developed and are now
following summer. This is generally too
implementing a beach monitoring and
notification program consistent with the late to fund the current year’s
monitoring, so States and Territories
requirements of the ‘‘National Beach
typically use grant funds awarded in
Guidance and Required Performance
one year to fund activities in the
Criteria for Grants’’ for the past 6 years.
following year’s beach season. Some
As a result of awarding grants to these
grant awards are made by amending the
States and Territories for the last seven
previous year’s grant award and
years, EPA now has a clear picture of
their spending patterns.
extending the project period.
TABLE 3—DISTRIBUTION OF 2008
BEACH ACT GRANTS—Continued
47157
Second, some States and Territories
delay expending BEACH Act grants
until the end of the beach season, or in
a few situations, the following year. For
example, a State may not expend the
grant funds awarded in FY 07 until FY
08. Since this State would use funds
awarded in 2006 for the 2007
monitoring, this means that some year
2006 funds may not be expended until
year 2008.
Overall, EPA expects that in any year,
States and Territories could have some
grant funds remaining from the
preceding two federal fiscal years, but
should have used and invoiced all the
funds from the federal fiscal years prior
to the preceding two federal fiscal years.
For example, in FY 2008, EPA expects
that States and Tribes could have funds
remaining from years FY 2006 and FY
2007, but would not have funds
remaining from years up through FY
2005. Table 4 shows the current status
of funds as of July 22, 2008 remaining
from the beginning of BEACH Act grants
(2001) through 2005.
TABLE 4—DISTRIBUTION OF BEACH ACT GRANT AWARDS AS OF 7/22/08
Total grant
funds received
FY 2001–2005
ebenthall on PRODPC60 with NOTICES
State
Alabama .......................................................................................................................................
Alaska ..........................................................................................................................................
American Samoa .........................................................................................................................
California ......................................................................................................................................
CNMI ............................................................................................................................................
Connecticut ..................................................................................................................................
Delaware ......................................................................................................................................
Florida ..........................................................................................................................................
Georgia ........................................................................................................................................
Guam ...........................................................................................................................................
Hawaii ..........................................................................................................................................
Illinois ...........................................................................................................................................
Indiana .........................................................................................................................................
Louisiana ......................................................................................................................................
Maine ...........................................................................................................................................
Maryland ......................................................................................................................................
Massachusetts .............................................................................................................................
Michigan .......................................................................................................................................
Minnesota ....................................................................................................................................
Mississippi ....................................................................................................................................
New Hampshire ...........................................................................................................................
New Jersey ..................................................................................................................................
New York .....................................................................................................................................
North Carolina ..............................................................................................................................
Ohio .............................................................................................................................................
Oregon .........................................................................................................................................
Pennsylvania ................................................................................................................................
Puerto Rico ..................................................................................................................................
Rhode Island ................................................................................................................................
South Carolina .............................................................................................................................
Texas ...........................................................................................................................................
Virgin Islands ...............................................................................................................................
Virginia .........................................................................................................................................
Washington ..................................................................................................................................
Wisconsin .....................................................................................................................................
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Total grant
funds remaining FY 2001–
2005
$1,108,677
660,178
1,207,142
2,178,117
1,270,938
957,854
902,802
2,211,738
1,210,365
1,208,932
1,354,901
1,185,881
882,484
1,471,127
1,090,713
1,153,021
1,090,645
1,151,672
875,555
1,088,902
876,994
1,189,459
1,493,065
1,280,231
960,193
972,673
821,766
1,382,783
911,670
1,255,358
1,620,223
1,270,325
1,258,772
1,153,133
965,890
$0
151,989
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3,522
7,477
4,998
0
52,842
0
0
547,201
0
0
0
64,184
0
0
0
E:\FR\FM\13AUN1.SGM
13AUN1
% Grants
funds uninvoiced FY
2001–2005
(percent)
0
23
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
<1
<1
<1
0
6
0
0
40
0
0
0
5
0
0
0
47158
Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 13, 2008 / Notices
As Table 4 shows, 28 States and
Territories have invoiced all funds from
years 2001 through 2005, but 7 States
and Territories have funds remaining
from grants awarded prior to 2006. Most
of those States and Territories have only
a few percent of these funds remaining.
However, Alaska and Puerto Rico have
over 20% of their funds remaining from
the years 2001 through 2005.
ebenthall on PRODPC60 with NOTICES
G. What Problems Occur Under the
Current Allocation Formula?
As discussed in section II.C., EPA
developed the current allocation
formula assuming that the BEACH Act
grant program would be funded to its
full authorization of $30 million.
Approximately $8.15 million of the
currently available $10 million in
BEACH Act grant funds are allocated on
the basis of what EPA expects is the
minimum amount of dollars needed to
establish and run a beach program,
according to the length of a beach
season in a State or Territory. As a
result, the shoreline miles and coastal
population factors are underrepresented in the allocation formula,
each receiving 9% of the total (based on
$10 million of available grant funds).
The dominating influence of the beach
season length can cause some issues.
First, States and Territories with longer
shorelines (and thus likely many
beaches) receive fewer funds per beach
than States and Territories with shorter
shorelines (likely fewer beaches). This
can result in a lower percentage of
beaches monitored or less intense
monitoring in the States and Territories
with many beaches, which may result in
less protection of public health that in
other States or Territories.
Second, States and Territories with
shorter shorelines (likely fewer beaches)
may receive more funds than they can
effectively spend, thus leaving unspent
funds intended for beach monitoring.
Third, the current allocation formula
uses miles of State shoreline as a
surrogate for miles of beaches. For
States with extensive coastline but
fewer miles of beaches, this factor
overestimates the miles of beaches,
resulting in larger grant awards than
perhaps warranted, and increases the
potential for unused funds.
Fourth, the current allocation formula
uses coastal county population data
provided by the Census Bureau as a
surrogate for actual beach use. This
results in a larger grant allocation for
States and Territories with high coastal
populations whether or not beach use in
those States and Territories is high, and
the potential for targeting funds away
from beaches where the potential to
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prevent more illnesses is higher because
of greater use there.
The Government Accountability
Office (GAO) identified these factors as
shortcomings of the current allocation
formula in its 2007 report on the beach
program. GAO recommended that EPA
allocate grant funds to better reflect
monitoring needs and help States and
Territories improve the consistency of
their monitoring and notification
activities.
III. Discussions of Expected Changes to
the Grant Allocation Formula
A. What Process Did EPA Use To
Analyze Potential Changes to the
Allocation Formula?
EPA first made public its intention to
revisit the allocation formula in the
Federal Register (FR) notice announcing
the availability of fiscal year 2006 grants
(71 FR 1744, 1746, January 11, 2006).
On February 15, 2006, EPA convened a
workgroup made up of EPA and State
representatives to explore issues and
problems with the current formula, and
to discuss possible changes to the
formula that would address these
problems. Of the 35 BEACH Act eligible
States, 25 participated in the workgroup
which met monthly. The workgroup
carefully evaluated alternatives to the
three component factors used in the
allocation formula. The workgroup
continued its work through May 2007.
B. What Factors Did EPA and States
Discuss?
EPA and States discussed all three
factors in the current allocation formula,
including better ways to quantify these
factors and to address the issues
discussed in Section II.G.
1. Beach Season Length
As discussed in Section II.D.1, this
factor recognizes, all other things being
equal, that the longer the beach season,
the more funds that a State or Territory
needs to operate a beach monitoring and
notification program. Under the current
formula, States and Territories with long
beach seasons receive more funds than
States and Territories with short beach
seasons for this factor. As summarized
in Table 1, above, the base funding level
of the current grant allocation formula is
based on the beach season length and
ranges from $150,000 to $300,000.
During the conference calls, the
workgroup evaluated options for
uniformly reducing the amounts
associated with this factor by either
$50,000 or $100,000 so that more funds
would be ‘‘available’’ to be allotted
based on the other two factors.
Uniformly reducing the beach season
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length component of the allocation
formula (i.e., by $50,000 or $100,000)
affects the minimum amount of funding
a State or Territory receives to
implement its BEACH Act monitoring
and notification program and would
have the effect of shifting funds toward
those States and Territories with longer
shorelines and greater shoreline
populations. For a $10 million
appropriation for BEACH Act grants,
reducing this factor by $50,000 (i.e.
changing the values in Table from
150,000 to 100,000; 200,000 to 150,000;
250,000 to 200,000) would result in a
total of $6.5 million for this factor, or
65% of the funds. Likewise, reducing
this factor by $100,000 would result in
a total of $4.75 million for this factor,
or 48% of the funds distributed by the
formula. Either of these changes would
reduce the significance of the length of
beach season in the allocation formula,
and increase the significance of the
other two factors, but would leave all
States and Territories with enough
funds to operate a basic beach
monitoring and notification program.
EPA estimates that this minimum base
amount is $150,000 based on 1 full-time
equivalent and other costs associated
with the collection and transmittal to
EPA of monitoring and advisory data.
The workgroup also discussed the
implications of reducing the beach
season length component by $150,000.
Most state workgroup representatives
believed this could reduce the grant
amounts at a $10 million appropriation
for States and Territories with fewer
beach miles or beach use to a level
below which the States and Territories
believed necessary to operate a basic
monitoring and notification program. As
a result, the workgroup only considered
reductions of $50,000 and $100,000.
2. Beach Miles
As discussed in section II.D.2, this
factor recognizes that the greater
number of beach miles in a State or
Territory, the more funds are needed to
monitor beaches and notify the public at
those beaches. From this component,
States and Territories with more miles
of beaches would receive more funds
than States and Territories with fewer
miles of beaches. Because there was no
verifiable source of the total beach
mileage for each State and Territory
when EPA developed the original
allocation formula, EPA used NOAA
shoreline length as a surrogate for beach
length.
a. Considerations About Total Beach
Miles
Beach mileage was a factor that
received special attention from the
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workgroup. The workgroup considered
options for changing the surrogate for
the beach mileage component from the
current shoreline miles (taken from a
NOAA data set) to a more precise
measure. They started their discussions
with a common view that actual beach
miles would be the most preferable
measure because it is a direct
measurement, rather than a surrogate
and is also available as a data field in
EPA’s PRogram tracking, beach
Advisories, Water quality standards,
and Nutrients (PRAWN) database.
PRAWN is used by EPA to store
information on State and Territorial
beach advisories and closings. However,
the workgroup found several issues with
the current information in PRAWN on
actual total beach miles.
The workgroup noted significant
differences in reported beach mileage
due to several factors. First, States and
Territories have different ways for
computing total beach miles in the data
that they input into PRAWN. Second,
not all States and Territories had input
complete information about beach
length into PRAWN. Finally, the
workgroup noticed what appeared to be
inconsistencies between entries in
PRAWN and similar data from other
sources.
As a result, the workgroup
recommended that EPA improve the
completeness and accuracy of the total
beach mile data in PRAWN before
considering using it in the allocation
formula. EPA is continuing to compile
and review for accuracy beach mileage
information for all the BEACH Act
States and Territories and expects to
have more reliable data on beach
mileage by mid-2009. EPA has designed
this effort to address all of the data
limitations discussed above, as well as
any additional limitations or concerns
that may arise during this effort. The
effort includes using the same latitude/
longitude data standards as used in
other EPA and State databases and a
quality assurance review of all data used
to generate the beach lengths. EPA is
conducting this effort with the States
and Territories to ensure that beach
mileage amounts are accurate and thus
would be appropriate to use for BEACH
Act grant allocation formula purposes in
the future.
Given their concerns about using
current total beach miles in the
allocation formula, the workgroup then
considered whether current monitored
beach miles (i.e. lengths of beaches
where sampling occurs) would be a
better measure to use. Lengths of
beaches with no monitoring would not
be considered. One advantage of using
monitored beach miles data that the
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workgroup recognized is that this
information is updated annually by
States and Territories as they submit
their beach monitoring and notification
information to EPA. The workgroup
favored using monitored beach miles
because they were aware of the quality,
accuracy and representativeness of this
information. The workgroup reviewed
the monitored beach mile data from
PRAWN for the 2005 swimming season,
which was the most current information
at the time of the workgroup
deliberations, and agreed that monitored
beach miles is a reasonable substitute
for total beach miles.
The workgroup categorized monitored
beach miles data into groups that were
relatively close in magnitude. The
workgroup observed that monitored
beach miles tended to fall into five
groups: less than 32 miles, 32–63 miles,
64–249 miles, 250–500 miles, and
greater than 500 miles. Grouping
information in this way has the effect of
minimizing differences between the
lowest and highest data points. EPA
considers grouping data appropriate
when there is a wide disparity between
the high and low points of data.
b. Considerations of Alternatives to
Beach Miles
The workgroup evaluated several
other alternatives for distributing grant
funds based on the monitoring need for
the length of beaches. These included
the total number of Tier 1 beaches, the
total number of Tier 1 and Tier 2
beaches combined (using EPA’s
recommended tiers), frequency of
sampling or the total number of samples
taken during the beach season at Tier 1
beaches, and total number of monitoring
stations. In discussing other alternatives
for characterizing beach length, the
workgroup looked for ways to better
represent the actual monitoring and
notification need by using data of
comparable quality between the States
and Territories.
A Tier 1 or Tier 2 beach represents the
relative priority that States and
Territories place on a beach for
monitoring and notification. Consistent
with the ‘‘National Beach Guidance and
Required Performance Criteria for
Grants’’ (EPA–823–B–02–004), States
and Territories evaluate and classify
beaches based on the potential risk of
disease and to protect public health. For
states that use EPA’s recommended
process to categorize or ‘‘tier’’ their
beaches, a classification of Tier 1, for
example, could indicate that waters are
of such importance and/or receive such
high usage that significant resources
should be devoted to more intensive
monitoring and public notification
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efforts for that area. In theory, a State or
Territory with a higher number of Tier
1 beaches (or combination of Tier 1 and
Tier 2 beaches) would have a greater
need for monitoring, and thus would
warrant more grant funds.
However, the workgroup did not
believe that using the Tier 1 or a
combination of Tier 1 and Tier 2
beaches would be a good alternative for
beach length. First, States and
Territories classify their beaches
differently. For example, some states
count each point of access to the ocean
as a beach whereas other states consider
the length of beach when counting
beaches.
Second, States and Territories use
different criteria for defining Tier 1
beaches. Some beaches are classified as
Tier 1 beaches because they are highly
used, and others are classified as Tier 1
because they have higher contamination
levels. The workgroup also discussed
creating a matrix of factors related to
monitoring at beaches, and using this to
quantify the component to allocate grant
funds based on monitoring need. This
matrix would include factors such as
operating costs, number of monitored
beaches, frequency of monitoring, and
number of monitoring stations.
The workgroup concluded that there
are several issues with using a matrix of
factors, and decided it would not be
appropriate to use it as a surrogate for
beach length. The first issue is that there
is no current verifiable collection of
these data and thus constructing a
matrix would require a data collection
effort that the workgroup did not believe
could be completed with verifiable data.
The second issue relates to using the
frequency of monitoring as a metric.
Some States and Territories would
likely monitor more intensely if they
had funds to do so. Therefore, a state’s
current level or frequency of monitoring
does not necessarily reflect a need for
monitoring but rather the resources
available to monitor. Some workgroup
members pointed out that collecting
more water samples at more stations is
not always necessary to ensure
protection of public health. If a beach
has a documented history of good water
quality and officials well understand
what is impacting water quality at a
particular beach, then taking more
samples at the beach may not provide
any more information for determining
the need for a beach advisory or protect
any more people from illness. In
addition, increased monitoring at a
beach with good water quality could
direct funds away from beaches that do
not have such a good history and thus
where additional monitoring would be
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helpful and lead to preventing
additional illness.
Third, EPA expects that States and
Territories have made decisions on the
intensity of monitoring and notification
priorities based on risk, the need to
protect public health, and local
circumstances. EPA’s guidance in this
area is in the ‘‘National Beach Guidance
and Performance Criteria for Grants’’
EPA–823–B–02–004). Including
frequency of sampling or number of
sampling stations in the allocation
formula could change this. EPA
recognizes that States and Territories
may want to reduce or increase
sampling frequencies at individual
beaches, focus on problem beaches,
conduct intensive sampling efforts, or
respond to community requests, and
that States and Territories need to be
able to make these decisions as needed
during a swimming season without
considering how it might affect the
distribution of grant funds the following
year.
3. Beach Use
As discussed in section II.D.3, this
factor recognizes that the greater the
beach use in a State or Territory, the
greater the potential to reduce the
absolute number of people who get sick
by monitoring and notifying the public
at these beaches. States and Territories
with beaches with more visitors would
receive more funds than States and
Territories with beaches with fewer
visitors. Because there was no verifiable
source of the number of people visiting
beaches when EPA developed the
allocation formula, EPA used 2000
census data of county coastal
population as a surrogate for beach use.
During its deliberations, the
workgroup investigated different ways
of finding a better estimate of beach use.
EPA identified a reliable, and
independently-verifiable data source:
‘‘Current Participation Patterns in
Marine Recreation’’ (November 2001),
which the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration published
as part of the 1999–2000 National
Survey of Recreation and the
Environment (NSRE). The NSRE is the
eighth in a series of national surveys
that was started in 1960 by the federal
government to assess outdoor recreation
participation in the United States. The
survey was conducted as an ‘‘in-thehome’’ phone survey of 50,000
households across all ethnic groups
throughout the United States. The
survey provides a quantitative measure
of the number of people who swim at
marine beaches, including mixed fresh/
saltwater in tidal portions of rivers and
bays. Thus, the survey better reflects the
swimming beach activity for marine
States than does coastal population. The
NSRE information overcomes the bias of
using coastal population as a surrogate
for beach use. However, the report does
not include data for the Great Lakes
States or the Territories.
The workgroup looked for other
sources of beach use or swimming
information regarding the Great Lakes
and Territories. Not finding such
information, the workgroup then
considered whether it could estimate
the number of people who swim at
beaches on the Great Lakes and the
Territories by projecting a ratio between
the NSRE report data and coastal
population data for marine States and
then applying this ratio to the coastal
population for the Great Lakes States
and the Territories. This process could
replace use of the year 2000 coastal
county population data on the
distribution of funds in the allocation
formula.
However, application of those ratios
produced results in some instances that
seemed inappropriate to the workgroup.
For example, applying the ratio to
estimate the number of people
swimming in the Chicago area was
about 50% higher than the NSRE data
for the New York City area. Applying
the ratio to Puerto Rico gave a result that
was only slightly higher than the NSRE
data for California. EPA discussed the
consequences of using the ratio to
estimate the number of people
swimming at Great Lakes and Territorial
beaches with representatives from Great
Lakes States and EPA Region 9
personnel representing the Pacific
Territories. The representatives
suggested that the ratio estimates should
be based on known local information if
available. Thus, EPA is now working
with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration to address
the need for an update to the NSRE that
would obtain information about Great
Lakes beaches.
As was the case with the beach length
data, the workgroup categorized the
beach use data to minimize the effect of
any imprecision in the data or
inconsistencies in reporting on the
allocation formula calculations. By
grouping the data into categories, beach
use totals that are relatively close in
magnitude would be considered to be
the same magnitude. The beach use data
tended to fall into four groups: fewer
than 1 million swimmers, 1–4 million
swimmers, 4–8 million swimmers, and
greater than 8 million swimmers.
C. What Potential Solutions Were
Developed?
From these evaluations of the
components of the formula, the
workgroup formed four options for a
revised formula. The options were
designed to overcome the two primary
issues with the current allocation
formula: the overly-large influence of
the beach season component of the
formula at the current level of
appropriations, and the shortcomings of
the surrogates for beach use and beach
length. To reduce the influence of the
beach season component, reductions in
this component by either $50,000 or
$100,000 per state were considered. To
overcome the shortcomings of the
current indices for beach miles and
beach use, EPA considered monitored
beaches as a surrogate for the beach
season length factor and the NSRE data
as a surrogate for the beach use factor.
The options differ in that they
investigate different combinations of
reducing the beach season length and
the effect of grouping monitored beach
mile and NSRE use data within range
categories as replacements for the
surrogates as shown in Table 5.
Grouping, as opposed to calculating an
allocation based on discrete beach mile
and use data, is more tolerant of
imprecision in measurement while
reflecting the effects of broader variation
for this type of purpose.
TABLE 5—ALLOCATION FORMULA OPTIONS CONSIDERED
The beach season component is
reduced by—
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For option—
1
2
3
4
.....................................................
.....................................................
.....................................................
.....................................................
The monitored beach miles data
for the component is—
$50,000 .........................................
$100,000 .......................................
$50,000 .........................................
$100,000 .......................................
Grouped ........................................
Grouped ........................................
Grouped * ......................................
Grouped * ......................................
The NSRE data for the beach use
component is—
Ungrouped.
Ungrouped.
Grouped.**
Grouped.**
* 5 Groupings: less than 32 miles, 32–63 miles, 64–249 miles, 250–500 miles, and greater than 500 miles.
**5 Groupings: fewer than 1 million swimmers, 1–4 million swimmers, 4–8 million swimmers, and greater than 8 million swimmers.
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All four options resulted in more
States losing funding than those gaining
funding. The 2006 BEACH Act grants
were used as a baseline to evaluate each
option. In 2006, the allocation
calculated awards ranging between
$150,000 and $528,410. In Option 1, the
calculated grant awards ranged from
$132,610 to $717,290. Nine States and
one Territory would receive increased
funding, with increases ranging from
$13,665 to $331,211. Six States and one
Territory would receive increases of
more than 20%. Twenty-one States and
four Territories would receive decreased
funding, with decreases ranging from
$2,458 to $170,949. Nine States would
receive decreases of more than 20%.
In Option 2, the calculated grant
awards ranged from $127,430 to
$687,770. Twelve States and three
Territories would receive increased
funding, with increases ranging from
$888 to $159,354. Five States and one
Territory States would receive increases
of more than 20%. Eighteen States and
two Territories States would receive
decreased funding, with decreases
ranging from $2,770 to $138,124. Four
of those 20 States would receive
decreases of more than 20%.
In Option 3, the calculated grant
awards ranged from $131,060 to
$561,960. Fourteen States and three
Territories would receive increased
funding, with increases ranging from
$769 to $114,510. Three States would
receive increases of more than 20%.
Sixteen States and two Territories
would receive decreased funding, with
decreases ranging from $7,120 to
$140,951. Two States would receive
decreases of more than 20%.
In Option 4, the calculated grant
awards ranged from $153,800 to
$490,220. Twelve States and five
Territories would receive increased
funding, with increases ranging from
$464 to $84,618. Two States would
receive increases of more than 20%.
Eighteen States would receive decreased
funding, with decreases ranging from
$275 to $118,216. One State would
receive a decrease of more than 20%.
In evaluating the options, EPA
recognized that under any option, some
States and Territories would gain
funding and some would lose. EPA was
most interested in options that would
not result in many States or Territories
losing significant funds such that their
programs would possibly be unable to
continue. Option 1 would result in nine
States and Territories losing over 20%
of their current annual funds, which
could adversely affect their ability to
carry out their program. Under option 2,
only four States and Territories would
lose over 20% of their funds, but more
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States and Territories would lose funds
than gain funds. Under option 3, only 2
States would lose over 20% of their
funds and the number of States and
Territories losing and gaining funds
were about the same. Under option 4
only one State would lose over 20% of
its current allocation and the number of
States and Territories losing and gaining
funds were about the same. EPA prefers
option 4. Each of the evaluated options
maintained at least $150,000 for all
States except Alaska, which was
reduced to as low as $127,430 in option
two.
D. How Did States React to the Options?
During the course of successive
meetings, State representatives in the
workgroup made it clear that any
significant reduction in beach grant
funds could cause severe effects to
many State beach monitoring and
notification programs. State
representatives identified effects
including discontinuing monitoring at
some beaches, especially those that are
in remote areas; discontinuing funding
to entire counties or Tribes that are
subcontracted to monitor beaches,
thereby reducing monitoring and
notification at multiple beaches; and
reducing the frequency of monitoring at
Tier 1 beaches in high-population areas,
thereby increasing the risk of missing
high pathogen concentrations and thus
increasing the risk to public health.
The State representatives on the
workgroup recommended that EPA
maintain its current allocation formula
(i.e., the ‘‘no change’’ option) for the
current level of funding (which is about
$10 million annually) to prevent
significant State and Territorial program
reductions or cuts. To many State
representatives, the annual beach grant
amount had become the financial
foundation upon which they built their
programs. In addition to funding the
actual beach monitoring and
notification, the annual beach grant
supports other elements essential to
maintaining a viable beach program: A
State or Territory beach coordinator, the
maintenance of a database of beach
monitoring and notification, and the
electronic transmittal of these data to
EPA. Some State budgets are very tight,
and funds for recreational water
monitoring and notification are limited
to the amount received in BEACH Act
grant funding. These States, which may
not have had any beach monitoring and
notification program prior to the BEACH
Act, are extremely sensitive to any
reduction in their grant amounts. Some
State workgroup representatives
indicated that they might choose to opt
out of EPA’s BEACH Act grant program
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if their grant amounts are significantly
reduced.
E. What Is EPA’s Reaction and Why?
EPA has reviewed the beach grant
allocation formula and has recognized
issues and some imbalance in the
allocation of grant funds among States
and Territories. EPA has sought input
from the States in having them
participate in a workgroup formed to
review the allocation formula. EPA and
the State workgroup identified and have
reviewed a range of options for
improving the formula.
EPA has reviewed the data on the
allocation of beach grant funds and
concludes that the current formula
provides a base amount of
approximately $150,000 that is the
minimum required to maintain a beach
program that meets the requirements of
the BEACH Act. The data indicate that
the distribution of fund grant funds is
for the most part equitable and that
States are expending the grant funds
consistent with program requirements.
EPA recognizes, however, outstanding
needs presented by long beach seasons,
heavy use of beaches, and/or long
coastlines with many beaches represent
burdens that some State partners must
manage.
Our evaluation led EPA to choose an
incremental process in considering
changes to the grant allocation formula,
starting with modest changes to address
outstanding needs. The first step to be
piloted by EPA in adjusting the grant
process employs two techniques: (1)
The re-allocation of older unexpended
grant funds and (2) making changes to
be employed effective in 2010 as to how
these and any other additional funds
over an annual appropriation of $10
million would be allocated to States and
Territories.
IV. Future Change to the Grant
Allocation Formula Under
Consideration
A. What Change Is EPA Considering?
EPA is today announcing that it is
considering a change to its allocation
formula that would shift funding from
States and Territories that are not fully
using all of their previously awarded
BEACH Act grant funds to those States
and Territories that: (1) Use their annual
funds and (2) have more beach miles at
which they could conduct monitoring
and notification to increase public
health protection. To do this, EPA
would develop and use a new allocation
formula based on beach miles and beach
use to reallocate any unspent funds.
EPA would also use this new formula in
the future to allocate any increase in
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appropriated BEACH Act grant funds
above the $10 million current level.
EPA would implement this approach
by reviewing State and Territorial
spending every October 1 and adjusting
the allocation to certain States and
Territories on the basis of the funds that
these States and Territories have not yet
expended. EPA would review EPA’s
Financial Database Warehouse to
confirm the amount of outstanding
funds reported. In making this
determination, EPA will take into
account those funds that have been
committed through an appropriate State,
Territorial or Tribal contract, interagency agreement, or similar type of
binding agreement, but have not been
requested for reimbursement, i.e., that
are not showing as ‘‘drawn down’’ in
EPA’s Data Warehouse. As noted in
section III.F., EPA recognizes that States
and Territories have different financial
management systems and that those
systems could result in delayed billing
to EPA, even though the States and
Territories might have already expended
funds to monitor beaches and notify the
public. EPA also recognizes that States
and Territories typically spend the
previous year’s grant award in any given
beach season due to the timing of the
availability of BEACH Act grants in the
middle of the beach season. Therefore,
to account for these factors, EPA is
considering an approach that would
reduce the new grant award by the
amount of unexpended grant funds that
are more than three years old.
For the 2010 beach season, EPA
would review State and Territory
spending in October 2009 and
determine how much grant funding
from fiscal years 2001 to 2007 is still
unspent by each State and Territory.
EPA would identify the unspent
amounts from 2001 through 2007 in the
Financial Database Warehouse and
compare them to the amount EPA
expects to award in fiscal year 2010.
EPA would then reduce the 2010 grant
award for those States and Territories
with unobligated funds from 2001
through 2007 by the amount remaining.
For example, in 2010, consider a State
that normally receives $250,000
annually yet has $100,000 remaining
from grants awarded up to fiscal year
2007. Under the approach that EPA is
considering, EPA would reduce the
State’s grant award for the following
year’s beach season by $100,000 (the
amount the State has left unspent from
fiscal years up to 2007), thus resulting
in an award of $150,000 in 2010. The
$100,000 not awarded to the State
would be combined with unused grant
funds from other States and Territories
and re-allocated among the States and
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Territories that have fully used their
funds from fiscal years up to 2007 using
a modified allocation formula, described
below.
EPA is considering reallocating these
additional funds according to a second,
modified allocation formula composed
of only two factors—beach miles and
beach use—to only those States and
Territories that do not have remaining
money older than three years old. EPA
is working with States and Territories to
obtain sufficient information to base a
supplemental allocation formula on
those two factors. As discussed in
Section III.B.2.a, with the help of State
and Territorial beach program managers,
EPA is compiling and quality testing
beach mile information for all the
BEACH Act States and Territories and
expects to have reliable beach mile data
on the extent of beaches by mid-2009.
EPA is also working with the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration to expand its research
on beach use to Great Lakes States, and
is also looking for information on beach
use in the Territories. EPA will work
with States to ensure effective
implementation of the new allocation
formula.
B. Why Isn’t EPA Amending Other Parts
of the Allocation Formula?
EPA is considering the retention of
the use of the surrogates EPA has used
for beach mileage and beach use—i.e.,
shoreline miles and coastal
population—as factors of the current
allocation formula for the first $10
million in BEACH Act grant funds. As
discussed in section III.D, States
consider their current level of BEACH
Act funding to be the financial
foundation for their beach monitoring
and notification programs. Because this
funding has been relatively stable over
the last six years, States and Territories
rely on these funds to provide them a
generally consistent level of funding for
their programs. For many States, funds
for recreational water monitoring are
limited to the amount received in
BEACH Act grant funding. Some States
have indicated to EPA that they might
choose to opt out of EPA’s BEACH Act
grant program if their grant amounts are
reduced. For these reasons, EPA is
considering retaining the use of
shoreline miles and coastal population
factors in the core allocation formula for
the first $10 million of appropriated
grant funds and not making any other
changes to this formula.
C. How Would This Change Affect
Current State Funding?
Based on grant fund use as of 2008,
EPA expects that most States and
PO 00000
Frm 00037
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
Territories will not be affected in 2010
because they currently have no unused
BEACH Act grant funds that are more
than three years old. The expected
changes to the allocation formula will
affect only those States and Territories
that have unspent BEACH Act grant
funds that are more than three years old.
In 2008, only 7 States and Territories—
Alaska, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New York, Ohio, Puerto Rico, and the
U.S. Virgin Islands—fall into this
category. As noted in Table 4, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York
all have balances of less than 1 percent
of their total BEACH Act grant funds
more than three years old. EPA
recognizes that Agency accounting
practices contributed to the remaining
balances in New Jersey and New York,
and has worked to ensure that the oldest
money is now invoiced first. Under the
process EPA is considering, should any
State or Territory in 2010 have
uninvoiced funds from FY 2001 through
FY 2007, EPA would reduce their 2010
grant funding by the amount equal to
this older money and redistribute these
funds to the other States and Territories.
D. How Would EPA Involve States in
Developing This Change?
EPA intends to reconstitute the
workgroup of EPA and State
representatives to discuss the details for
implementing this change to the
allocation formula. EPA will also invite
Territorial representatives to the
workgroup.
E. When Would This Change Become
Effective?
EPA expects that this change will be
effective for the awarding of the 2010
BEACH Act grants.
Dated: August 7, 2008.
Benjamin H. Grumbles,
Assistant Administrator for Water.
[FR Doc. E8–18739 Filed 8–12–08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560–50–P
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
[EPA–HQ–Docket ID No. ORD–2008–0597;
FRL–8703–4]
Guidance on the Development,
Evaluation and Application of
Environmental Models
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of public comment
period.
AGENCY:
SUMMARY: EPA is announcing a 30-day
public comment period for an external
review of its Guidance Document on the
E:\FR\FM\13AUN1.SGM
13AUN1
Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 157 (Wednesday, August 13, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 47154-47162]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-18739]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[OW-FRL-8703-9]
Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of Expected Changes to the Grant Allocation Formula for
Awarding Grants Under the BEACH Act.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health
(BEACH) Act authorizes EPA to award program development and
implementation grants to eligible States, Territories, Tribes, and
local governments to support microbiological monitoring and
notification of the public of the potential for exposure to disease-
causing microorganisms in coastal recreation waters. EPA awards BEACH
Act grant funds to eligible States, Territories and Tribes each year
using an allocation formula to determine the amount of federal funds
available for award to each State and Territory. EPA is considering
changes to this allocation formula for the award of grants in 2010 and
is providing States, Territories, and Tribes advance notice of expected
changes.
ADDRESSES: EPA recognizes that reviewers may wish to express their
views and should send them to the Docket. Submit your views, identified
by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2008-0539, by one of the following methods:
www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for
submitting scientific views.
E-mail: OW-Docket@epa.gov.
Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; EPA Docket
Center (EPA/DC). Water Docket, MC 2822T; 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC 20460.
Hand Delivery: EPA Docket Center, 1301 Constitution Ave,
NW., EPA West, Room 3334, Washington, DC. Such deliveries are only
accepted during the Docket's normal hours of operation, and special
arrangements should be made for deliveries of boxed information.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lars Wilcut, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave.,
NW., (4305T), Washington, DC 20460. Telephone: (202) 566-0447. E-mail:
wilcut.lars@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
A. What Is the BEACH Act?
The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act
of 2000 amends the Clean Water Act to better protect public health at
our Nation's beaches through improved water quality standards and beach
monitoring and notification programs. The BEACH Act authorizes EPA to
award grants to develop and implement monitoring and public
notification programs for coastal recreation waters, consistent with
EPA's required performance criteria. EPA published the required
performance criteria for grants in its ``National Beach Guidance and
Required Performance Criteria for Grants'' (EPA-823-B-02-004), on July
19, 2002. Currently, all 35 eligible States and Territories operate
beach monitoring and notification programs using BEACH Act grant funds.
B. Who Is Eligible To Apply for BEACH Act Grants?
Coastal and Great Lake States and Territories that meet the
requirements of CWA section 406(b)(2)(A) are eligible for BEACH Act
grants. These are the States adjacent to the Great Lakes, the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico as well as the Commonwealth
of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Tribes may also be
eligible for BEACH Act grants. In order to be eligible, a Tribe must
have coastal recreation waters adjacent to beaches or similar points of
access that are used by the public, and the Tribe must demonstrate that
it meets the ``treatment in the same manner as a State'' criteria in
CWA Section 518(e) for the purposes of receiving a Section 406 BEACH
Act grant.
C. How Much Funding Is Available?
After the first year of funding of approximately two million
dollars in 2001, funding for the years between
[[Page 47155]]
2002 and 2007 has been approximately $10 million per year distributed
among all eligible States, Territories, and Tribes. The actual grant
total awards are $1,812,580 in 2001; $9,999,990 in 2002; $9,935,000 in
2003; $9,891,000 in 2004; $9,870,000 in 2005; $9,803,100 in 2006;
$9,900,000 in 2007; and $9,745,500 in 2008.
II. Current Allocation Formula
A. Why Did EPA Develop an Allocation Formula?
BEACH Act grants are awarded annually to eligible States,
Territories and Authorized Tribes for the purpose of running a
continuing environmental program for beach monitoring and notification;
therefore, it is appropriate to award these grants using an allocation
formula rather than to award the grants competitively. EPA uses an
allocation formula in other State and Tribal continuing environmental
programs for which EPA awards grants. EPA chose to develop and use an
allocation formula for BEACH grants to help ensure objectivity in
allocations to the 35 eligible States and Territories. On an annual
basis, EPA reserves $50,000 for eligible tribes from the total grant
amount appropriated. To date, one tribe has applied for and received a
grant award. Should other Tribes become eligible, EPA will reserve more
funds for grants to Tribes.
B. How Did EPA Develop the Current Allocation Formula?
In 2001, EPA, with assistance from the Association of State and
Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators (ASIWPCA), held a
conference call with States to inform them that EPA was developing an
allocation formula for use in distributing BEACH Act funds. In
developing an allocation formula, EPA wanted a method that distributed
more funds to States and Territories that had a greater number of
highly-used beaches, because EPA expected that monitoring needs would
be greater in these States. EPA also wanted an allocation formula that
used verifiable data for each of the various factors in the formula.
EPA developed a series of possible allocation scenarios, assuming at
the time that the funding would approach the full authorized amount of
$30 million. EPA then had follow-up calls with States, obtained their
views and input, and developed a proposed allocation formula. EPA then
consulted with the States, the Coastal States Organization, and ASIWPCA
on the proposed formula. Although some States and the contacted
associations thought the allocation formula could be improved upon,
they were generally satisfied with this approach because it used the
most reliable data then available. There was not an agreement among
parties on a better or preferred method.
C. What Is the Current Allocation Formula?
The current allocation formula is used to allocate funds to States
or Territories where the monitoring needs are greatest, that is,
towards States and Territories with more miles of beaches that are open
for longer periods during the year, and are used by more people. EPA
considers the miles of beaches and the length of a beach season to be
good indicators of the need for (and cost of) monitoring and
notification. A State or Territory with many beaches open for the
entire year would be expected to monitor more than a State or Territory
with few beaches only open during the summer. EPA considers beach use
(represented by the number of people who visit and use the beach) to be
a good indicator of the importance of monitoring and notification to
protect public health at beaches. Notifications of exceedance of water
quality standards at beaches with more people would be expected to
prevent more cases of illness, and thus reduce the overall public
health risk nationally more than notifications at beaches that
experience low visitation. This is consistent with the requirement in
the BEACH Act that grantees ``prioritize the use of grant funds for
particular coastal recreation waters based on the use of the water and
the risk to human health presented by pathogens and pathogen
indicators'' and the beach prioritization step in EPA's ``National
Beach Guidance and Performance Criteria for Grants'' See CWA Section
406(b) (2) A (ii) and EPA-823-B-02-004. Chapter 3 of this document
describes the risk-based beach evaluation and classification process,
including the evaluation steps and recommended information that a
State, Territory, or Tribe should consider when ranking beaches.
The current allocation formula sums three parts. The first part is
a base amount for all States and Territories that varies with the
length of the beach season. This base amount is scaled in $50,000
increments from $150,000 for States with the shortest beach season to
$300,000 for States and Territories with the longest beach season.
States and Territories with long seasons are allotted two times the
base amount of grant funds as those with short beach seasons (Table 1).
The second part of the formula allots half of the total remaining funds
(i.e. what is left after subtracting the total base amount) on the
basis of the ratio of shoreline miles in a State or Territory to the
total length of shoreline miles across the entire United States. For
example, if a State has 4 percent of the total coastal and Great Lakes
shoreline, that State would be allotted 4 percent of 50 percent (or 2
percent) of total funds remaining after the Agency allotted the base
amount (i.e. part one of the formula) to all States and Territories.
The third part of the formula allots the remaining funds on the basis
of the ratio of coastal population in a State or Territory to the total
coastal population. For example, if a State has 2 percent of the total
coastal and Great Lakes population, that State would receive 2 percent
of 50 percent (or 1 percent) of the total funds remaining after the
Agency allotted the funds for the first two parts. The following table
summarizes the allocation formula:
Table 1--BEACH Grant Allocation Factors
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the factor-- The part of the allocation is--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beach season length.......... <3 months: $150,000 (States and
Territories with a season <3 months
receive season-based funding only.)
3-4 months: $200,000.
5-6 months: $250,000.
>6 months: $300,000.
Shoreline miles.............. 50% of funds remaining after allocation
of season-based funding.
Coastal population........... 50% of funds remaining after allocation
of season-based funding.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Page 47156]]
EPA reserves $50,000 from the total amount appropriated for grants
to eligible Tribes. To date, one tribe has applied for and received a
grant award. Should other Tribes become eligible, EPA will reserve more
funds for grants to Tribes.
The current allocation formula was originally developed assuming
EPA would receive the full amount of funds authorized to be
appropriated for grants under the BEACH Act ($30 million). At an annual
appropriation level of $30 million, the beach season component of the
formula ($8.15 million) would represent 27% of the annually available
funds. At this funding level, the beach length and beach use components
would each be $10.92 million, representing together 73% of the
allocated funds. Since 2002, annual appropriations for BEACH Act grants
have been approximately $10 million. At an annual appropriation level
of $10 million, the beach season component (still $8.15 million)
represents 82% of the appropriation, and the beach length and beach use
components ($0.92 million each) together represent 18% of the available
funds. Therefore, because the appropriation has been much lower than
the authorization, the ratio of the different components of the
allocation formula has shifted from being roughly equal, which was the
intention, to being heavily dominated by the beach season length
component. The result is that a State or Territory with a longer beach
season would receive substantially more money than a State or Territory
in a colder climate with a shorter beach season but with more beaches
and more people using them.
D. How Are the Factors in the Allocation Formula Quantified?
1. Beach Season Length
EPA selected beach season length as a factor because it represents
the amount of time in a year when a government would conduct its
monitoring and notification program. The longer the beach season, the
more resources a government would need to conduct monitoring and
notification. The Agency obtained the information on the length of a
beach season from the ``National Health Protection Survey of Beaches''
for the States or Territories that submitted a completed survey.
However, because Alaska was not included in the survey, EPA estimated
the beach season length for Alaska on the basis of air and water
temperature, available information on recreation activities, and data
from the ``1993 National Water Based Recreation Survey.'' EPA then
grouped the States and Territories into four categories of beach season
lengths as shown in Table 2.
Table 2--Distribution of States by Beach Season Category
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For beaches in-- The beach season category is--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska.................................................. <3 months.
Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, 3-4 months.
Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington,
Wisconsin.
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North 5-6 months.
Carolina, South Carolina.
American Samoa, California, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, 9-12 months.
Northern Mariana, Puerto Rico, Texas, U.S. Virgin
Islands.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Shoreline Miles
EPA wanted to use miles of beach as a factor because it is
indicative of the geographical extent over which a government would be
expected to conduct monitoring. The more miles of beaches, the more
resources a government would need to conduct monitoring and
notification. EPA did not have current beach mileage data in a format
that could be used for the allocation formula. Therefore, EPA has used
shoreline miles as a surrogate for beach miles in the allocation
formula. Shoreline miles data overestimate beach miles in some States
and Territories; however, EPA and States agreed that this is the best
way to estimate beach miles as it was the best available data at that
time. EPA used the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) publication, ``The Coastline of the United States,'' to quantify
shoreline miles.
3. Coastal Population
EPA wanted to use beach use as a factor because it reflects the
magnitude of potential human exposure to pathogens at recreational
beaches. In short, States and Territories can prevent more total
illnesses when they notify the public of pollution problems at heavily-
used beaches than when they notify the public at less-used beaches. EPA
presently uses the coastal population of counties (from the 2000 Census
data) to quantify the coastal population that is wholly or partially
within the State's or Territory's legally-defined coastal zone, as a
surrogate for actual beach usage.
E. What Do States Receive Under the Current Allocation Formula?
For 2008, the total available for BEACH Act grants to States and
Territories was $9,745,500. EPA reserved $50,000 for authorized Tribes.
Assuming all 35 States and Territories with coastal recreation waters
apply and meet the eligibility requirements for implementation grants
(and have met the statutory grant conditions applicable to previously
awarded CWA section 406 grants), the allocation of the funds for fiscal
year 2008 is the following:
Table 3--Distribution of 2008 BEACH Act Grants
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The year
2008
For the State or Territory of-- allocation
is--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama.................................................... $258,390
Alaska..................................................... 147,650
American Samoa............................................. 297,460
California................................................. 514,720
Connecticut................................................ 220,500
Delaware................................................... 207,730
Florida.................................................... 526,320
Georgia.................................................... 282,700
Guam....................................................... 297,930
Hawaii..................................................... 318,590
Illinois................................................... 240,290
Indiana.................................................... 202,730
Louisiana.................................................. 320,270
Maine...................................................... 252,220
Maryland................................................... 266,900
Massachusetts.............................................. 251,930
Michigan................................................... 276,210
Minnesota.................................................. 201,190
Mississippi................................................ 253,680
New Hampshire.............................................. 201,450
New Jersey................................................. 275,480
New York................................................... 347,300
North Carolina............................................. 299,150
Northern Marianas.......................................... 298,670
Ohio....................................................... 220,780
Oregon..................................................... 225,970
Pennsylvania............................................... 219,650
Puerto Rico................................................ 324,080
[[Page 47157]]
Rhode Island............................................... 209,650
South Carolina............................................. 293,270
Texas...................................................... 379,140
U.S. Virgin Islands........................................ 298,510
Virginia................................................... 274,650
Washington................................................. 267,980
Wisconsin.................................................. 222,420
------------------------------------------------------------------------
F. How Much Are States Spending Using the Current Allocation Formula?
All 35 eligible States and Territories have developed and are now
implementing a beach monitoring and notification program consistent
with the requirements of the ``National Beach Guidance and Required
Performance Criteria for Grants'' for the past 6 years. As a result of
awarding grants to these States and Territories for the last seven
years, EPA now has a clear picture of their spending patterns.
First, States and Territories fund their beach monitoring and
notification programs using funds awarded in the previous year. For
example, a State will use its 2007 grant to fund 2008 beach monitoring
and notification. The reason for this is the timing of the award of
annual BEACH Act grants. EPA typically receives its appropriation
between December and March of each fiscal year. Once EPA is aware of
the total appropriation for BEACH Act grants, EPA publishes a notice of
the availability of grants. States and Territories apply for the
grants, and the grants are awarded by summer with a project period that
generally covers the following summer. This is generally too late to
fund the current year's monitoring, so States and Territories typically
use grant funds awarded in one year to fund activities in the following
year's beach season. Some grant awards are made by amending the
previous year's grant award and extending the project period.
Second, some States and Territories delay expending BEACH Act
grants until the end of the beach season, or in a few situations, the
following year. For example, a State may not expend the grant funds
awarded in FY 07 until FY 08. Since this State would use funds awarded
in 2006 for the 2007 monitoring, this means that some year 2006 funds
may not be expended until year 2008.
Overall, EPA expects that in any year, States and Territories could
have some grant funds remaining from the preceding two federal fiscal
years, but should have used and invoiced all the funds from the federal
fiscal years prior to the preceding two federal fiscal years. For
example, in FY 2008, EPA expects that States and Tribes could have
funds remaining from years FY 2006 and FY 2007, but would not have
funds remaining from years up through FY 2005. Table 4 shows the
current status of funds as of July 22, 2008 remaining from the
beginning of BEACH Act grants (2001) through 2005.
Table 4--Distribution of BEACH Act Grant Awards as of 7/22/08
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total grant % Grants funds
Total grant funds un-invoiced FY
State funds received remaining FY 2001-2005
FY 2001-2005 2001-2005 (percent)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama......................................................... $1,108,677 $0 0
Alaska.......................................................... 660,178 151,989 23
American Samoa.................................................. 1,207,142 0 0
California...................................................... 2,178,117 0 0
CNMI............................................................ 1,270,938 0 0
Connecticut..................................................... 957,854 0 0
Delaware........................................................ 902,802 0 0
Florida......................................................... 2,211,738 0 0
Georgia......................................................... 1,210,365 0 0
Guam............................................................ 1,208,932 0 0
Hawaii.......................................................... 1,354,901 0 0
Illinois........................................................ 1,185,881 0 0
Indiana......................................................... 882,484 0 0
Louisiana....................................................... 1,471,127 0 0
Maine........................................................... 1,090,713 0 0
Maryland........................................................ 1,153,021 0 0
Massachusetts................................................... 1,090,645 0 0
Michigan........................................................ 1,151,672 0 0
Minnesota....................................................... 875,555 0 0
Mississippi..................................................... 1,088,902 0 0
New Hampshire................................................... 876,994 3,522 <1
New Jersey...................................................... 1,189,459 7,477 <1
New York........................................................ 1,493,065 4,998 <1
North Carolina.................................................. 1,280,231 0 0
Ohio............................................................ 960,193 52,842 6
Oregon.......................................................... 972,673 0 0
Pennsylvania.................................................... 821,766 0 0
Puerto Rico..................................................... 1,382,783 547,201 40
Rhode Island.................................................... 911,670 0 0
South Carolina.................................................. 1,255,358 0 0
Texas........................................................... 1,620,223 0 0
Virgin Islands.................................................. 1,270,325 64,184 5
Virginia........................................................ 1,258,772 0 0
Washington...................................................... 1,153,133 0 0
Wisconsin....................................................... 965,890 0 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Page 47158]]
As Table 4 shows, 28 States and Territories have invoiced all funds
from years 2001 through 2005, but 7 States and Territories have funds
remaining from grants awarded prior to 2006. Most of those States and
Territories have only a few percent of these funds remaining. However,
Alaska and Puerto Rico have over 20% of their funds remaining from the
years 2001 through 2005.
G. What Problems Occur Under the Current Allocation Formula?
As discussed in section II.C., EPA developed the current allocation
formula assuming that the BEACH Act grant program would be funded to
its full authorization of $30 million. Approximately $8.15 million of
the currently available $10 million in BEACH Act grant funds are
allocated on the basis of what EPA expects is the minimum amount of
dollars needed to establish and run a beach program, according to the
length of a beach season in a State or Territory. As a result, the
shoreline miles and coastal population factors are under-represented in
the allocation formula, each receiving 9% of the total (based on $10
million of available grant funds). The dominating influence of the
beach season length can cause some issues. First, States and
Territories with longer shorelines (and thus likely many beaches)
receive fewer funds per beach than States and Territories with shorter
shorelines (likely fewer beaches). This can result in a lower
percentage of beaches monitored or less intense monitoring in the
States and Territories with many beaches, which may result in less
protection of public health that in other States or Territories.
Second, States and Territories with shorter shorelines (likely
fewer beaches) may receive more funds than they can effectively spend,
thus leaving unspent funds intended for beach monitoring.
Third, the current allocation formula uses miles of State shoreline
as a surrogate for miles of beaches. For States with extensive
coastline but fewer miles of beaches, this factor overestimates the
miles of beaches, resulting in larger grant awards than perhaps
warranted, and increases the potential for unused funds.
Fourth, the current allocation formula uses coastal county
population data provided by the Census Bureau as a surrogate for actual
beach use. This results in a larger grant allocation for States and
Territories with high coastal populations whether or not beach use in
those States and Territories is high, and the potential for targeting
funds away from beaches where the potential to prevent more illnesses
is higher because of greater use there.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified these factors
as shortcomings of the current allocation formula in its 2007 report on
the beach program. GAO recommended that EPA allocate grant funds to
better reflect monitoring needs and help States and Territories improve
the consistency of their monitoring and notification activities.
III. Discussions of Expected Changes to the Grant Allocation Formula
A. What Process Did EPA Use To Analyze Potential Changes to the
Allocation Formula?
EPA first made public its intention to revisit the allocation
formula in the Federal Register (FR) notice announcing the availability
of fiscal year 2006 grants (71 FR 1744, 1746, January 11, 2006). On
February 15, 2006, EPA convened a workgroup made up of EPA and State
representatives to explore issues and problems with the current
formula, and to discuss possible changes to the formula that would
address these problems. Of the 35 BEACH Act eligible States, 25
participated in the workgroup which met monthly. The workgroup
carefully evaluated alternatives to the three component factors used in
the allocation formula. The workgroup continued its work through May
2007.
B. What Factors Did EPA and States Discuss?
EPA and States discussed all three factors in the current
allocation formula, including better ways to quantify these factors and
to address the issues discussed in Section II.G.
1. Beach Season Length
As discussed in Section II.D.1, this factor recognizes, all other
things being equal, that the longer the beach season, the more funds
that a State or Territory needs to operate a beach monitoring and
notification program. Under the current formula, States and Territories
with long beach seasons receive more funds than States and Territories
with short beach seasons for this factor. As summarized in Table 1,
above, the base funding level of the current grant allocation formula
is based on the beach season length and ranges from $150,000 to
$300,000.
During the conference calls, the workgroup evaluated options for
uniformly reducing the amounts associated with this factor by either
$50,000 or $100,000 so that more funds would be ``available'' to be
allotted based on the other two factors. Uniformly reducing the beach
season length component of the allocation formula (i.e., by $50,000 or
$100,000) affects the minimum amount of funding a State or Territory
receives to implement its BEACH Act monitoring and notification program
and would have the effect of shifting funds toward those States and
Territories with longer shorelines and greater shoreline populations.
For a $10 million appropriation for BEACH Act grants, reducing this
factor by $50,000 (i.e. changing the values in Table from 150,000 to
100,000; 200,000 to 150,000; 250,000 to 200,000) would result in a
total of $6.5 million for this factor, or 65% of the funds. Likewise,
reducing this factor by $100,000 would result in a total of $4.75
million for this factor, or 48% of the funds distributed by the
formula. Either of these changes would reduce the significance of the
length of beach season in the allocation formula, and increase the
significance of the other two factors, but would leave all States and
Territories with enough funds to operate a basic beach monitoring and
notification program. EPA estimates that this minimum base amount is
$150,000 based on 1 full-time equivalent and other costs associated
with the collection and transmittal to EPA of monitoring and advisory
data.
The workgroup also discussed the implications of reducing the beach
season length component by $150,000. Most state workgroup
representatives believed this could reduce the grant amounts at a $10
million appropriation for States and Territories with fewer beach miles
or beach use to a level below which the States and Territories believed
necessary to operate a basic monitoring and notification program. As a
result, the workgroup only considered reductions of $50,000 and
$100,000.
2. Beach Miles
As discussed in section II.D.2, this factor recognizes that the
greater number of beach miles in a State or Territory, the more funds
are needed to monitor beaches and notify the public at those beaches.
From this component, States and Territories with more miles of beaches
would receive more funds than States and Territories with fewer miles
of beaches. Because there was no verifiable source of the total beach
mileage for each State and Territory when EPA developed the original
allocation formula, EPA used NOAA shoreline length as a surrogate for
beach length.
a. Considerations About Total Beach Miles
Beach mileage was a factor that received special attention from the
[[Page 47159]]
workgroup. The workgroup considered options for changing the surrogate
for the beach mileage component from the current shoreline miles (taken
from a NOAA data set) to a more precise measure. They started their
discussions with a common view that actual beach miles would be the
most preferable measure because it is a direct measurement, rather than
a surrogate and is also available as a data field in EPA's PRogram
tracking, beach Advisories, Water quality standards, and Nutrients
(PRAWN) database. PRAWN is used by EPA to store information on State
and Territorial beach advisories and closings. However, the workgroup
found several issues with the current information in PRAWN on actual
total beach miles.
The workgroup noted significant differences in reported beach
mileage due to several factors. First, States and Territories have
different ways for computing total beach miles in the data that they
input into PRAWN. Second, not all States and Territories had input
complete information about beach length into PRAWN. Finally, the
workgroup noticed what appeared to be inconsistencies between entries
in PRAWN and similar data from other sources.
As a result, the workgroup recommended that EPA improve the
completeness and accuracy of the total beach mile data in PRAWN before
considering using it in the allocation formula. EPA is continuing to
compile and review for accuracy beach mileage information for all the
BEACH Act States and Territories and expects to have more reliable data
on beach mileage by mid-2009. EPA has designed this effort to address
all of the data limitations discussed above, as well as any additional
limitations or concerns that may arise during this effort. The effort
includes using the same latitude/longitude data standards as used in
other EPA and State databases and a quality assurance review of all
data used to generate the beach lengths. EPA is conducting this effort
with the States and Territories to ensure that beach mileage amounts
are accurate and thus would be appropriate to use for BEACH Act grant
allocation formula purposes in the future.
Given their concerns about using current total beach miles in the
allocation formula, the workgroup then considered whether current
monitored beach miles (i.e. lengths of beaches where sampling occurs)
would be a better measure to use. Lengths of beaches with no monitoring
would not be considered. One advantage of using monitored beach miles
data that the workgroup recognized is that this information is updated
annually by States and Territories as they submit their beach
monitoring and notification information to EPA. The workgroup favored
using monitored beach miles because they were aware of the quality,
accuracy and representativeness of this information. The workgroup
reviewed the monitored beach mile data from PRAWN for the 2005 swimming
season, which was the most current information at the time of the
workgroup deliberations, and agreed that monitored beach miles is a
reasonable substitute for total beach miles.
The workgroup categorized monitored beach miles data into groups
that were relatively close in magnitude. The workgroup observed that
monitored beach miles tended to fall into five groups: less than 32
miles, 32-63 miles, 64-249 miles, 250-500 miles, and greater than 500
miles. Grouping information in this way has the effect of minimizing
differences between the lowest and highest data points. EPA considers
grouping data appropriate when there is a wide disparity between the
high and low points of data.
b. Considerations of Alternatives to Beach Miles
The workgroup evaluated several other alternatives for distributing
grant funds based on the monitoring need for the length of beaches.
These included the total number of Tier 1 beaches, the total number of
Tier 1 and Tier 2 beaches combined (using EPA's recommended tiers),
frequency of sampling or the total number of samples taken during the
beach season at Tier 1 beaches, and total number of monitoring
stations. In discussing other alternatives for characterizing beach
length, the workgroup looked for ways to better represent the actual
monitoring and notification need by using data of comparable quality
between the States and Territories.
A Tier 1 or Tier 2 beach represents the relative priority that
States and Territories place on a beach for monitoring and
notification. Consistent with the ``National Beach Guidance and
Required Performance Criteria for Grants'' (EPA-823-B-02-004), States
and Territories evaluate and classify beaches based on the potential
risk of disease and to protect public health. For states that use EPA's
recommended process to categorize or ``tier'' their beaches, a
classification of Tier 1, for example, could indicate that waters are
of such importance and/or receive such high usage that significant
resources should be devoted to more intensive monitoring and public
notification efforts for that area. In theory, a State or Territory
with a higher number of Tier 1 beaches (or combination of Tier 1 and
Tier 2 beaches) would have a greater need for monitoring, and thus
would warrant more grant funds.
However, the workgroup did not believe that using the Tier 1 or a
combination of Tier 1 and Tier 2 beaches would be a good alternative
for beach length. First, States and Territories classify their beaches
differently. For example, some states count each point of access to the
ocean as a beach whereas other states consider the length of beach when
counting beaches.
Second, States and Territories use different criteria for defining
Tier 1 beaches. Some beaches are classified as Tier 1 beaches because
they are highly used, and others are classified as Tier 1 because they
have higher contamination levels. The workgroup also discussed creating
a matrix of factors related to monitoring at beaches, and using this to
quantify the component to allocate grant funds based on monitoring
need. This matrix would include factors such as operating costs, number
of monitored beaches, frequency of monitoring, and number of monitoring
stations.
The workgroup concluded that there are several issues with using a
matrix of factors, and decided it would not be appropriate to use it as
a surrogate for beach length. The first issue is that there is no
current verifiable collection of these data and thus constructing a
matrix would require a data collection effort that the workgroup did
not believe could be completed with verifiable data.
The second issue relates to using the frequency of monitoring as a
metric. Some States and Territories would likely monitor more intensely
if they had funds to do so. Therefore, a state's current level or
frequency of monitoring does not necessarily reflect a need for
monitoring but rather the resources available to monitor. Some
workgroup members pointed out that collecting more water samples at
more stations is not always necessary to ensure protection of public
health. If a beach has a documented history of good water quality and
officials well understand what is impacting water quality at a
particular beach, then taking more samples at the beach may not provide
any more information for determining the need for a beach advisory or
protect any more people from illness. In addition, increased monitoring
at a beach with good water quality could direct funds away from beaches
that do not have such a good history and thus where additional
monitoring would be
[[Page 47160]]
helpful and lead to preventing additional illness.
Third, EPA expects that States and Territories have made decisions
on the intensity of monitoring and notification priorities based on
risk, the need to protect public health, and local circumstances. EPA's
guidance in this area is in the ``National Beach Guidance and
Performance Criteria for Grants'' EPA-823-B-02-004). Including
frequency of sampling or number of sampling stations in the allocation
formula could change this. EPA recognizes that States and Territories
may want to reduce or increase sampling frequencies at individual
beaches, focus on problem beaches, conduct intensive sampling efforts,
or respond to community requests, and that States and Territories need
to be able to make these decisions as needed during a swimming season
without considering how it might affect the distribution of grant funds
the following year.
3. Beach Use
As discussed in section II.D.3, this factor recognizes that the
greater the beach use in a State or Territory, the greater the
potential to reduce the absolute number of people who get sick by
monitoring and notifying the public at these beaches. States and
Territories with beaches with more visitors would receive more funds
than States and Territories with beaches with fewer visitors. Because
there was no verifiable source of the number of people visiting beaches
when EPA developed the allocation formula, EPA used 2000 census data of
county coastal population as a surrogate for beach use.
During its deliberations, the workgroup investigated different ways
of finding a better estimate of beach use. EPA identified a reliable,
and independently-verifiable data source: ``Current Participation
Patterns in Marine Recreation'' (November 2001), which the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published as part of the 1999-
2000 National Survey of Recreation and the Environment (NSRE). The NSRE
is the eighth in a series of national surveys that was started in 1960
by the federal government to assess outdoor recreation participation in
the United States. The survey was conducted as an ``in-the-home'' phone
survey of 50,000 households across all ethnic groups throughout the
United States. The survey provides a quantitative measure of the number
of people who swim at marine beaches, including mixed fresh/saltwater
in tidal portions of rivers and bays. Thus, the survey better reflects
the swimming beach activity for marine States than does coastal
population. The NSRE information overcomes the bias of using coastal
population as a surrogate for beach use. However, the report does not
include data for the Great Lakes States or the Territories.
The workgroup looked for other sources of beach use or swimming
information regarding the Great Lakes and Territories. Not finding such
information, the workgroup then considered whether it could estimate
the number of people who swim at beaches on the Great Lakes and the
Territories by projecting a ratio between the NSRE report data and
coastal population data for marine States and then applying this ratio
to the coastal population for the Great Lakes States and the
Territories. This process could replace use of the year 2000 coastal
county population data on the distribution of funds in the allocation
formula.
However, application of those ratios produced results in some
instances that seemed inappropriate to the workgroup. For example,
applying the ratio to estimate the number of people swimming in the
Chicago area was about 50% higher than the NSRE data for the New York
City area. Applying the ratio to Puerto Rico gave a result that was
only slightly higher than the NSRE data for California. EPA discussed
the consequences of using the ratio to estimate the number of people
swimming at Great Lakes and Territorial beaches with representatives
from Great Lakes States and EPA Region 9 personnel representing the
Pacific Territories. The representatives suggested that the ratio
estimates should be based on known local information if available.
Thus, EPA is now working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration to address the need for an update to the NSRE that would
obtain information about Great Lakes beaches.
As was the case with the beach length data, the workgroup
categorized the beach use data to minimize the effect of any
imprecision in the data or inconsistencies in reporting on the
allocation formula calculations. By grouping the data into categories,
beach use totals that are relatively close in magnitude would be
considered to be the same magnitude. The beach use data tended to fall
into four groups: fewer than 1 million swimmers, 1-4 million swimmers,
4-8 million swimmers, and greater than 8 million swimmers.
C. What Potential Solutions Were Developed?
From these evaluations of the components of the formula, the
workgroup formed four options for a revised formula. The options were
designed to overcome the two primary issues with the current allocation
formula: the overly-large influence of the beach season component of
the formula at the current level of appropriations, and the
shortcomings of the surrogates for beach use and beach length. To
reduce the influence of the beach season component, reductions in this
component by either $50,000 or $100,000 per state were considered. To
overcome the shortcomings of the current indices for beach miles and
beach use, EPA considered monitored beaches as a surrogate for the
beach season length factor and the NSRE data as a surrogate for the
beach use factor. The options differ in that they investigate different
combinations of reducing the beach season length and the effect of
grouping monitored beach mile and NSRE use data within range categories
as replacements for the surrogates as shown in Table 5. Grouping, as
opposed to calculating an allocation based on discrete beach mile and
use data, is more tolerant of imprecision in measurement while
reflecting the effects of broader variation for this type of purpose.
Table 5--Allocation Formula Options Considered
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The beach season The monitored beach The NSRE data for the
For option-- component is reduced miles data for the beach use component is--
by-- component is--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.................................... $50,000................ Grouped................ Ungrouped.
2.................................... $100,000............... Grouped................ Ungrouped.
3.................................... $50,000................ Grouped *.............. Grouped.**
4.................................... $100,000............... Grouped *.............. Grouped.**
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 5 Groupings: less than 32 miles, 32-63 miles, 64-249 miles, 250-500 miles, and greater than 500 miles.
**5 Groupings: fewer than 1 million swimmers, 1-4 million swimmers, 4-8 million swimmers, and greater than 8
million swimmers.
[[Page 47161]]
All four options resulted in more States losing funding than those
gaining funding. The 2006 BEACH Act grants were used as a baseline to
evaluate each option. In 2006, the allocation calculated awards ranging
between $150,000 and $528,410. In Option 1, the calculated grant awards
ranged from $132,610 to $717,290. Nine States and one Territory would
receive increased funding, with increases ranging from $13,665 to
$331,211. Six States and one Territory would receive increases of more
than 20%. Twenty-one States and four Territories would receive
decreased funding, with decreases ranging from $2,458 to $170,949. Nine
States would receive decreases of more than 20%.
In Option 2, the calculated grant awards ranged from $127,430 to
$687,770. Twelve States and three Territories would receive increased
funding, with increases ranging from $888 to $159,354. Five States and
one Territory States would receive increases of more than 20%. Eighteen
States and two Territories States would receive decreased funding, with
decreases ranging from $2,770 to $138,124. Four of those 20 States
would receive decreases of more than 20%.
In Option 3, the calculated grant awards ranged from $131,060 to
$561,960. Fourteen States and three Territories would receive increased
funding, with increases ranging from $769 to $114,510. Three States
would receive increases of more than 20%. Sixteen States and two
Territories would receive decreased funding, with decreases ranging
from $7,120 to $140,951. Two States would receive decreases of more
than 20%.
In Option 4, the calculated grant awards ranged from $153,800 to
$490,220. Twelve States and five Territories would receive increased
funding, with increases ranging from $464 to $84,618. Two States would
receive increases of more than 20%. Eighteen States would receive
decreased funding, with decreases ranging from $275 to $118,216. One
State would receive a decrease of more than 20%.
In evaluating the options, EPA recognized that under any option,
some States and Territories would gain funding and some would lose. EPA
was most interested in options that would not result in many States or
Territories losing significant funds such that their programs would
possibly be unable to continue. Option 1 would result in nine States
and Territories losing over 20% of their current annual funds, which
could adversely affect their ability to carry out their program. Under
option 2, only four States and Territories would lose over 20% of their
funds, but more States and Territories would lose funds than gain
funds. Under option 3, only 2 States would lose over 20% of their funds
and the number of States and Territories losing and gaining funds were
about the same. Under option 4 only one State would lose over 20% of
its current allocation and the number of States and Territories losing
and gaining funds were about the same. EPA prefers option 4. Each of
the evaluated options maintained at least $150,000 for all States
except Alaska, which was reduced to as low as $127,430 in option two.
D. How Did States React to the Options?
During the course of successive meetings, State representatives in
the workgroup made it clear that any significant reduction in beach
grant funds could cause severe effects to many State beach monitoring
and notification programs. State representatives identified effects
including discontinuing monitoring at some beaches, especially those
that are in remote areas; discontinuing funding to entire counties or
Tribes that are subcontracted to monitor beaches, thereby reducing
monitoring and notification at multiple beaches; and reducing the
frequency of monitoring at Tier 1 beaches in high-population areas,
thereby increasing the risk of missing high pathogen concentrations and
thus increasing the risk to public health.
The State representatives on the workgroup recommended that EPA
maintain its current allocation formula (i.e., the ``no change''
option) for the current level of funding (which is about $10 million
annually) to prevent significant State and Territorial program
reductions or cuts. To many State representatives, the annual beach
grant amount had become the financial foundation upon which they built
their programs. In addition to funding the actual beach monitoring and
notification, the annual beach grant supports other elements essential
to maintaining a viable beach program: A State or Territory beach
coordinator, the maintenance of a database of beach monitoring and
notification, and the electronic transmittal of these data to EPA. Some
State budgets are very tight, and funds for recreational water
monitoring and notification are limited to the amount received in BEACH
Act grant funding. These States, which may not have had any beach
monitoring and notification program prior to the BEACH Act, are
extremely sensitive to any reduction in their grant amounts. Some State
workgroup representatives indicated that they might choose to opt out
of EPA's BEACH Act grant program if their grant amounts are
significantly reduced.
E. What Is EPA's Reaction and Why?
EPA has reviewed the beach grant allocation formula and has
recognized issues and some imbalance in the allocation of grant funds
among States and Territories. EPA has sought input from the States in
having them participate in a workgroup formed to review the allocation
formula. EPA and the State workgroup identified and have reviewed a
range of options for improving the formula.
EPA has reviewed the data on the allocation of beach grant funds
and concludes that the current formula provides a base amount of
approximately $150,000 that is the minimum required to maintain a beach
program that meets the requirements of the BEACH Act. The data indicate
that the distribution of fund grant funds is for the most part
equitable and that States are expending the grant funds consistent with
program requirements. EPA recognizes, however, outstanding needs
presented by long beach seasons, heavy use of beaches, and/or long
coastlines with many beaches represent burdens that some State partners
must manage.
Our evaluation led EPA to choose an incremental process in
considering changes to the grant allocation formula, starting with
modest changes to address outstanding needs. The first step to be
piloted by EPA in adjusting the grant process employs two techniques:
(1) The re-allocation of older unexpended grant funds and (2) making
changes to be employed effective in 2010 as to how these and any other
additional funds over an annual appropriation of $10 million would be
allocated to States and Territories.
IV. Future Change to the Grant Allocation Formula Under Consideration
A. What Change Is EPA Considering?
EPA is today announcing that it is considering a change to its
allocation formula that would shift funding from States and Territories
that are not fully using all of their previously awarded BEACH Act
grant funds to those States and Territories that: (1) Use their annual
funds and (2) have more beach miles at which they could conduct
monitoring and notification to increase public health protection. To do
this, EPA would develop and use a new allocation formula based on beach
miles and beach use to reallocate any unspent funds. EPA would also use
this new formula in the future to allocate any increase in
[[Page 47162]]
appropriated BEACH Act grant funds above the $10 million current level.
EPA would implement this approach by reviewing State and
Territorial spending every October 1 and adjusting the allocation to
certain States and Territories on the basis of the funds that these
States and Territories have not yet expended. EPA would review EPA's
Financial Database Warehouse to confirm the amount of outstanding funds
reported. In making this determination, EPA will take into account
those funds that have been committed through an appropriate State,
Territorial or Tribal contract, inter-agency agreement, or similar type
of binding agreement, but have not been requested for reimbursement,
i.e., that are not showing as ``drawn down'' in EPA's Data Warehouse.
As noted in section III.F., EPA recognizes that States and Territories
have different financial management systems and that those systems
could result in delayed billing to EPA, even though the States and
Territories might have already expended funds to monitor beaches and
notify the public. EPA also recognizes that States and Territories
typically spend the previous year's grant award in any given beach
season due to the timing of the availability of BEACH Act grants in the
middle of the beach season. Therefore, to account for these factors,
EPA is considering an approach that would reduce the new grant award by
the amount of unexpended grant funds that are more than three years
old.
For the 2010 beach season, EPA would review State and Territory
spending in October 2009 and determine how much grant funding from
fiscal years 2001 to 2007 is still unspent by each State and Territory.
EPA would identify the unspent amounts from 2001 through 2007 in the
Financial Database Warehouse and compare them to the amount EPA expects
to award in fiscal year 2010. EPA would then reduce the 2010 grant
award for those States and Territories with unobligated funds from 2001
through 2007 by the amount remaining. For example, in 2010, consider a
State that normally receives $250,000 annually yet has $100,000
remaining from grants awarded up to fiscal year 2007. Under the
approach that EPA is considering, EPA would reduce the State's grant
award for the following year's beach season by $100,000 (the amount the
State has left unspent from fiscal years up to 2007), thus resulting in
an award of $150,000 in 2010. The $100,000 not awarded to the State
would be combined with unused grant funds from other States and
Territories and re-allocated among the States and Territories that have
fully used their funds from fiscal years up to 2007 using a modified
allocation formula, described below.
EPA is considering reallocating these additional funds according to
a second, modified allocation formula composed of only two factors--
beach miles and beach use--to only those States and Territories that do
not have remaining money older than three years old. EPA is working
with States and Territories to obtain sufficient information to base a
supplemental allocation formula on those two factors. As discussed in
Section III.B.2.a, with the help of State and Territorial beach program
managers, EPA is compiling and quality testing beach mile information
for all the BEACH Act States and Territories and expects to have
reliable beach mile data on the extent of beaches by mid-2009. EPA is
also working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
to expand its research on beach use to Great Lakes States, and is also
looking for information on beach use in the Territories. EPA will work
with States to ensure effective implementation of the new allocation
formula.
B. Why Isn't EPA Amending Other Parts of the Allocation Formula?
EPA is considering the retention of the use of the surrogates EPA
has used for beach mileage and beach use--i.e., shoreline miles and
coastal population--as factors of the current allocation formula for
the first $10 million in BEACH Act grant funds. As discussed in section
III.D, States consider their current level of BEACH Act funding to be
the financial foundation for their beach monitoring and notification
programs. Because this funding has been relatively stable over the last
six years, States and Territories rely on these funds to provide them a
generally consistent level of funding for their programs. For many
States, funds for recreational water monitoring are limited to the
amount received in BEACH Act grant funding. Some States have indicated
to EPA that they might choose to opt out of EPA's BEACH Act grant
program if their grant amounts are reduced. For these reasons, EPA is
considering retaining the use of shoreline miles and coastal population
factors in the core allocation formula for the first $10 million of
appropriated grant funds and not making any other changes to this
formula.
C. How Would This Change Affect Current State Funding?
Based on grant fund use as of 2008, EPA expects that most States
and Territories will not be affected in 2010 because they currently
have no unused BEACH Act grant funds that are more than three years
old. The expected changes to the allocation formula will affect only
those States and Territories that have unspent BEACH Act grant funds
that are more than three years old. In 2008, only 7 States and
Territories--Alaska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Puerto
Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands--fall into this category. As noted in
Table 4, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York all have balances of
less than 1 percent of their total BEACH Act grant funds more than
three years old. EPA recognizes that Agency accounting practices
contributed to the remaining balances in New Jersey and New York, and
has worked to ensure that the oldest money is now invoiced first. Under
the process EPA is considering, should any State or Territory in 2010
have uninvoiced funds from FY 2001 through FY 2007, EPA would reduce
their 2010 grant funding by the amount equal to this older money and
redistribute these funds to the other States and Territories.
D. How Would EPA Involve States in Developing This Change?
EPA intends to reconstitute the workgroup of EPA and State
representatives to discuss the details for implementing this change to
the allocation formula. EPA will also invite Territorial
representatives to the workgroup.
E. When Would This Change Become Effective?
EPA expects that this change will be effective for the awarding of
the 2010 BEACH Act grants.
Dated: August 7, 2008.
Benjamin H. Grumbles,
Assistant Administrator for Water.
[FR Doc. E8-18739 Filed 8-12-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P