Under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act of 2000, EPA provides annual grants to coastal and Great Lakes states, territories and eligible tribes. This funding helps local authorities monitor their coastal and Great Lakes beaches and notify the public of water quality conditions that may be unsafe for swimming.

Overview of BEACON 2.0

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created the BEach Advisory and Closing Online Notification (BEACON) system to meet the Agency's requirement to provide to the public a database of pollution occurrences for coastal recreation waters. EPA's response to this requirement, BEACON, contains state-reported beach monitoring and notification data. EPA recently updated BEACON to include several enhancements and has named the new system BEACON 2.0.

Visit the BEACON System

What are the sources of BEACON information?

The coastal and Great Lakes states, tribes and territories that receive grants under the BEACH Act provided to EPA the data available through BEACON. For the most up-to-date information, contact the state or local beach manager using the contact information provided on each beach's map and profile report.

The state-reported data found in BEACON come from the following EPA databases:

• Reach Address Database (RAD). RAD contains geographic data that define each beach's location and the location of water quality monitoring stations. BEACON retrieves this data to display the beaches and stations on a map.
• STOrage and RETrieval (STORET) database and Water Quality Exchange (WQX). STORET is EPA's repository of the water quality monitoring data collected by water resource management groups across the country. WQX is the framework by which organizations submit data to STORET. BEACON pulls water quality monitoring data from both WQX and STORET.
• PRogram tracking, beach Advisories, Water quality standards, and Nutrients (PRAWN). PRAWN stores beach administrative, advisory and closing data.