The headline pretty much says it all. What's left to say is about how long Alabama's Gulf Coast beaches have been so, well, so beautiful.
The truth is that nobody really knows. Since 1999 when testing first began, Alabama's Gulf Coast beaches have never been closed for pollution.
State's beaches pass pollution tests, among the nation's cleanest
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — There have been no days this summer when swimmers were advised against entering the waters of Alabama's Gulf beaches, which officials say are among the nation's cleanest.
Few of the beaches along the state's shore have tested dirty and none has been closed for pollution since testing began in 1999. Steve Jenkins, chief of field operations for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, said Mobile Bay and the tip of Dauphin Island near Mobile Bay have turned up dirty on occasion.
Joel Hansel, regional coordinator for Environmental Protection Agency's beach monitoring program, said there isn't as much to pollute the water on Alabama's Gulf beaches since human population with stormwater pipes and other sources of pollution tend to be clustered around bays more than open beaches.
"The beach sites that are in the greater Gulf have not traditionally been a problem," he said.
Alabama began its beach testing program with five monitors and has expanded to 25, covering the length of the beach and Mobile Bay.
"We get a lot of requests for that data, all over the country, from Canada, from tourists wanting to know, 'Is it safe?'" Jenkins said. "We're able to provide them with hard data to show that the water is safe."