OC Earns Perfect Water Quality Grade

OCEAN CITY — Ocean City and neighboring Dewey Beach in Delaware were among the 12 destinations to earn a perfect five-star rating in an annual report released this week on water quality at popular beaches around the country.

According to “Testing the Waters: A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches,” an independent report released every year by the Natural Resources Defense Council, water quality at beaches in Ocean City earned a perfect five-star rating again. For the 22nd year in a row, the NRDC reviewed data supplied by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to rate water quality at beaches on a variety of standards including acceptable levels of bacteria, frequency of monitoring and the number of closures and advisories over the course of the year.

In 2011, six designated beach locations in Ocean City were tested twice a week during the summer for a total of 27 samples taken. At each site and during each sampling, Ocean City exceeded the acceptable state and federal standards zero percent of the time and there were no closures or advisory days.