Originally published August 7 2005
Study finds that beach pollution varies with the moon cycle
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new study has shown that the amount of beach pollution goes up an down depending on the lunar cycle. This new information may help scientists develop a system for determining when it is safest to go to the beach.
A new study of 60 beaches in Southern California suggests that water pollution varies with the lunar cycle, reaching the highest levels when tides are ebbing during the new and full moon.
Coastal water quality is controlled by a number of complex physical and biological factors, including tidal cycles and seasonal rainfall.
For the new study, the researchers examined monitoring data compiled for beaches throughout Southern California, keeping track of tidal patterns and analyzing them for concentrations of enterococci -- bacteria that allow scientists to estimate the risk of illness from swimming in marine waters.
"This is the largest array of beaches examined at the same time for a similar pattern," says Alexandria Boehm, Ph.D., an environmental engineer at Stanford University and lead author of the study.
She and her colleagues at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project found that in the full and new phases of the moon, levels of enterococci were higher at the vast majority of the beaches studied.
Boehm found that during so-called "spring tides," when water levels vary the most between high and low tides, a beach is twice as likely to be out of compliance with water quality standards.
The results are of immediate practical use to swimmers and beach managers alike, according to Boehm.
"The general public can use the phase of the moon and the tide stage to assess the relative risk of illness," she says.
"Beach sands and wrack [piles of seaweed and animal remains that wash ashore] have been shown at freshwater beaches to harbor fecal indicator bacteria and even pathogenic bacteria," Boehm says.
"We just don't know for sure, since no one has done an epidemiological study to connect human illness to enterococci from non-point sources other than runoff," Boehm says.
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