Staff Writer

Gooch’s Beach in Kennebunk has been named one of 10 Maine beaches with the highest percentage of harmful bacteria in the water, according to the Natural Resource Defense Council.

The council, which works to promote healthy environments for wildlife and humans, last week released its 20^th annual beach water quality report that shows water at many beaches in Maine have high levels of bacteria from animal and human waste.

“We haven’t closed this year but if the test results come back with an over 100 bacteria count, we issue an advisory on the beach,” said Kennebunk Recreation Department Director Brian Costello.

During 2009, 23 percent of the samples from Gooch’s Beach exceeded the state standard for safe swimming water. The beach had 12 advisory days, the sixth most in the state. When a beach posts an advisory, it means it is recommended to the public to avoid water contact. Advisories are posted when bacteria results are higher than the standard amount allowed to be “safe,” according to the Main Healthy Beaches Program.

Last year, 11 percent of all beach water samples from 60 coastal beaches tested for the report, violated state standards. Closings and advisories in Maine increased 47 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to information from the council’s beach report.

Testing is done each summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Costello said he believes the increase along the coast was due to heavy rain and multiple storms last summer, which may have picked up pollutants as the rainwater washed over the land and them to the ocean.

Costello said John White, who does not work for the town, volunteers his time to test the water. White tests the water at five sites along Gooch’s Beach, starting to the south by the river.

The testing itself is a very intricate process, Costello said.

“You can’t touch the bag, it has to be rolled the right way. There are tides and winds and all these factors have to come in to account when doing the testing,” he said.

For a water sample to be considered unsafe, it must have no more than 104 bacteria cells in each 100-milliliter test sample, said Emily Figdor, director of Environment Maine.

“That’s the threshold. When the standard was developed that amount of bacteria cells was deemed to be the safe standard,” Figdor said.

Figdor said the 24-hour wait period to obtain test results is especially dangerous after a big rainstorm because officials at local beaches don’t know whether the water is safe until the following day.

The group advises people stay off beaches for at least 24 hours after a heavy rainstorm.

Gooch’s Beach isn’t the only beach in the area with recurring water quality problems. Colony Beach, Goose Rocks Beach and Kennebunk Beach all experienced more than five advisory days last year and all have more than 12 percent of samples that exceeded the state standards last year.

Figdor said exposure to the water may cause health problems, including ear, nose and eye infections, stomach flu, skin rashes, respiratory illness and  hepatitis.

“We’re working on trying to find the source. We’re going up rivers, code enforcement checks to see that it’s not the septic,” Costello said. “It seems to be bad after big storms. Whatever is running into the water after the storms is causing this problem.”

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.