The National Resource Defense Council released its annual report card on U.S. beaches. The good news? The NRDC reported an overall decrease in the number of beach closures in 2012 (mostly because of low rainfall). The bad? A whopping 80 percent of the closures (for a total of 20,120 days) happened because of dangerously high bacteria levels in beach water. Beaches on the Great Lakes faired the worst, accounting for more than 10 percent of water samples that violated health standards.
The repeat offenders, according to the NRDC: Avalon Beach (Los Angeles, CA), Doheny State Beach (Orange, CA), Jeorse Park Beach (Lake, IN), Beachwood Beach (Ocean, NJ), Ontario Beach (Monroe, NY), Lakeshore Park (Ashtabula, OH), Euclid State Park (Cuyahoga, OH), Edson Creek (Erie, OH), and South Shore Beach (Milwaukee, WI). Source