Keynote Address
Plenary Session (Location: Hagerty Center)
For decades, transboundary flows of untreated sewage, industrial waste, trash, and sediment from Tijuana have impacted the Tijuana River Valley, coastal communities, and public health in San Diego County. This presentation examines the evolution of San Diego County’s response to this ongoing environmental and public health crisis, with a focus on beach water quality monitoring, advances in testing technology, and collaborative advocacy efforts. The County of San Diego’s Beach and Bay Water Quality Monitoring Program protects public health by collecting and analyzing water samples, communicating results, and implementing beach management actions when water quality conditions warrant advisories, warnings, or closures. In South County, enhanced daily monitoring provides additional data in an area particularly affected by transboundary sewage flows. The central focus of the presentation is the County’s implementation of droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) for use in beach water quality management decision, which became operational on May 5, 2022, following a decade of research, regulatory development, comparative testing, and collaboration with state and federal partners. ddPCR reduced average processing time from approximately 27 hours to 8 hours, allowing the County to communicate results and, when appropriate, reopen waters on the same day samples meet state standards. The presentation also explores how scientific data have informed policy and advocacy, including the County’s 2023 declaration of a local environmental emergency based on bacterial contamination, beach closures, and associated environmental and economic impacts. Partnerships among local, state, federal, academic, and international agencies have supported research, environmental monitoring, emergency response, infrastructure investment, and improved public access to information. Ultimately, the San Diego experience demonstrates how science, regulatory innovation, interagency collaboration, and community advocacy can work together to address a complex transboundary environmental health crisis and strengthen protections for communities and recreational water users.
Panel: United States, Canada, Tribes/First Nations and Eurpoean perspectives
Panel: U.S. State and Local Perspectives
Plenary Session (Location: Hagerty Center
Standards & MST
Track 1 - Breakout Session - 1:00 - 2:40 p.m.
(Locaton: Hagerty Center)
This session will have three goals, (1) to provide an overview of SRM 2917, a standard to support qPCR validation, (2) to learn from the community about adoption of qPCR for recreation water testing, and (3) to gain insight on current standards needs, specifically those that may support new and/or rapid detection methods.
Examining how Michigan adopted NIST Standards for use in Draft Method C testing, and their performance across multiple years in making qPCR standard curves.
State and federal partners collaborated on a multi-year research project aimed at assessing pathogen concentrations in the swimming zone and near-shore sand of four beaches in Iowa. The objective was to explore relationships among E. coli, pathogens, and health risk at the beaches to support comprehensive management of this recreational resource. Beach water and sand were analyzed for microbial source tracking markers (human, bovine/ruminant, dog, goose, gull, porcine, and avian) and bacterial, viral, and protozoan pathogens. Findings support the use of site-specific risk assessment and management to mitigate potential health risks posed to recreators.
A case study on the use of microbial source tracking tools to inform on the fecal sources impacting water quality in a Florida stream. Recycled water was highlighted as a source that can interfere with identification of untreated sewage. However, using culturable E. coli and the sewage-associated H8 marker, we demonstrate our ability to distinguish sewage contamination which resulted in identification of infrastructure failure and successful remediation to improve water quality in the Florida stream.
Coastal Resilience
Track 2 Breakout Sessions - 1:00 - 2:40 p.m.
(Location: Delamar)
This study addresses the observational gap in high-frequency water level fluctuations (HFWLF) in the Great Lakes using a new observational network of Sofar Ocean Spotter buoys and bottom-mounted pressure sensors. We analyze wave events captured by this network in the 2025 summer season to identify the HWFLF signatures present and the potential coastal hazards associated with them. The results aim to improve detection and forecasting of coastal hazards in the Great Lakes.
Exploration of a shoreline stabilization approaches that integrate emulation of natural shoreline planforms and aesthetics, ecological enhancements and long-term functional performance to control littoral processes while and concurrently reintroducing scarce and significant habitat to the nearshore waters.
Michigan is home to the largest freshwater dune system in the world. These diversity, quality, and functions of these dunes are home to numerous rare species, provide significant recreational opportunities, and support local economies. From 2024-2026, EGLE, GEI, MNFI, MSU, and MTU have worked to assess Michigan's sand dunes and create a proposed atlas of critical dunes. This presentation will provide an overview of the methodology used to holistically assess the morphology, coastal processes, impacts, and ecology of Michigan’s sand dunes and how EGLE is using this data to further coastal resiliency goals through the Critical Dune Area program.
Nearly every coastal state benefits from having a vibrant healthy coastline, while at the same time suffers physical, ecological, and economic losses when its beaches retreat and disappear. Implementing beach nourishment is a primary means of maintaining or recovering that loss of the beach for reasons spanning from tourism and economy to disaster mitigation and resiliency. In Michigan, beach nourishment occurs primarily as a byproduct of the maintenance of our navigable channels. And yet the benefits of the process are far greater than the intent, particularly as Michigan’s 3,288 miles of coastline are threatened by erosion. This presentation will provide a snapshot of the state of beach nourishment in Michigan – how it’s used now, who is nourishing, it’s impacts, and how promoting and sponsoring more of it could help the Great Lakes State provide shoreline resilience in the future.
A practitioner-focused synthesis of small-scale beach nourishment, pocket beaches, and embayed shoreline systems, drawing on several decades of project experience across Florida, the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and the Indian Ocean. The discussion emphasizes the engineering of beaches ranging from approximately 300 to 2,500 feet in length, and frequently integrated with groins, breakwaters, revetments, marina structures, or headland spurs.
Health Risk
Track 1 Breakout Sessions 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
(Location: Hagerty Center)
Marina Beach has a history of exceeding bacteria targets, raising concerns about swimmer health and the most effective management actions. Previous studies identified birds as the primary source, with low human input, but actual recreational health risk was not evaluated. This project collected summer-season samples across the beach and harbor to measure human and gull fecal DNA markers. Marker concentrations were compared to published risk-based thresholds to estimate combined health risk from human and bird sources. This study demonstrates a practical, low-cost screening approach to inform beach managers about actual health risk, dominant sources, and targeted abatement strategies.
This presentation will highlight a comparative case study that examines the utility of using microbial source-tracking data from recreational water and quantitative microbial risk assessment to inform source- and site-specific health risks. The approach and development of the human health risk assessment will be discussed to support other integrated MST and QMRA studies. Further, the potential information that can be learned and the decision-making that can be implemented by beach managers stemming from this integrated approach will be presented.
This presentation introduces a hybrid modeling approach for predicting bathing water quality, combining machine learning and deterministic models. Simple statistical models are used for low-risk beaches, while more complex process-based models are applied where hydrodynamics and pollution sources require detailed representation. A decision frameworks help managers select the appropriate approach. The method improves prediction accuracy while optimizing cost and effort. It supports real-time, risk-based beach management.
This session explores how beachgoers interpret water quality by relying on sensory cues and beliefs that fail to accurately capture risk by conflating water quality with cleanliness (e.g., lack of debris and trash). Survey research has found that less than 50% of adults consider “clean” beach water to be free of disease-causing pathogens when, from a health perspective, that is the defining characteristic. To advance our understanding of public awareness of health risk from waterborne pathogens, we examine people’s behaviors and beliefs about Galveston Island beaches using a novel instrument called the Galveston BEACH (Beaches, Economic Activity, and Community Health) Survey. Through statistical analysis of the survey data, we answer: What risks do beachgoers perceive from their recreational activities? To what degree are people aware of waterborne pathogen risk from recreational exposure? What individual and social factors are associated with this awareness?
TMDLs & AOCs
Track 2 Breakout Sessions - 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
(Location: Delamar)
Data Stories and Lessons Learned
Day 2 Plenary Session, 9:00 -10:40 a.m.
What are the trends in beach closures and advisories across the nation over the last decade? States, Tribes and territories who receive BEACH Act grants have submitted water quality and beach advisory data to EPA’s BEACON (Beach Advisory and Closing On-line Notification) data system since the 2000 BEACH Act. In this presentation, EPA’s headquarters Beach Program staff will share trends and visualizations of beach closures that will cover data at the regional, state, county and beach level from 2015-2024. Percent of beach days open during the season is the metric we will use to analyze trends and visualize the data. This metric normalizes variations in swim season length, beach closure criteria and different fecal bacteria indicators and methods measured. Analyzing the data using this metric enables individuals to visualize data at the beach, county, state, Tribal and territory scale. Viewing the historic data set in this new way, at a granular resolution, could help inform management decisions at multiple scales. Single year and multiple year visualizations can highlight spatial and temporal trends. The presentation is an overview of the analysis and how we put together millions of water quality data points from over 4,000 beaches across the nation. We will demonstrate how the data visualization is useful at multiple scales from an EPA Region down to an individual beach. Finally, we will discuss how this might inform future tools that may be developed by headquarters to support the Beach Program.
The Florida Healthy Beaches Program was established by the Florida Legislature in 2000. Section 514.023, Florida Statutes, provides authority for the Department of Health to monitor our coastal beaches and to issue advisories when conditions exceed indicator standards. Beginning in 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supported monitoring of Florida’s beaches to develop and implement beach monitoring that is consistent with the Federal Beach Act requirements. Fecal coliform and enterococcus bacteria were initially used as indicators with the monitoring of fecal coliforms ending in the summer of 2011. Currently, 31 of Florida’s coastal counties are conducting weekly or biweekly sampling which is supported by county, State and EPA Grant funding. From 2000 through 2026, Florida County Health Departments have collected 283,056 beach samples. Currently in 2026 our Program is conducting monitoring at 349 beaches and as of July 10th have collected 7055 samples. This presentation will provide an overview of our Program to include topics such as resampling, advisories and public dissemination of our data.
Inland Seas Education Association is a Great Lakes education non-profit based in Suttons Bay, MI. Since 1989, ISEA has conducted ship-based educational programs in which student participants are directly involved in collecting secchi disk measurements in West Grand Traverse Bay and Suttons Bay. Still actively growing, the ISEA secchi disk dataset has logged more than 4,000 observations to date, making it one of the longest running and most robust water quality datasets in the region. In the Great Lakes, water turbidity is impacted by a variety of factors, including the abundance of plankton life and shoreline erosion. ISEA’s citizen science secchi disk dataset has been used to help establish seasonal and annual trends in the water turbidity of West Grand Traverse Bay. Seasonally, secchi measurements range from an average of 16 meters in May to an average of 10 meters in October. For ISEA, this seasonal data is used in educational programming to demonstrate the impact an increase in water temperature and sunlight availability has on turbidity. From 1989 to 2025, the annual average secchi depth has increased from about 8 meters to about 12 meters. This change in the annual average is a result of the introduction of the invasive dreissenid mussel species, D. bugensis (quagga mussel) and D. polymorpha (zebra mussel). These invasive mussels are filter feeders that consume an unsustainable amount of the plankton in the Great Lakes. Lower plankton abundance as a result of invasive mussels has caused increased water transparency. ISEA’s annual average secchi data is regularly used to educate the public about the importance of plankton to the Great Lakes ecosystem and to inspire stewardship action that combats the impacts of invasive species.
After the 1950’s, man-made armoring of the Lake Michigan shoreline in Wisconsin and Illinois increased. This has significantly limited the amount of sediment to the littoral system from natural bluff and shoreline erosion. To compensate for the reduced sediment transport, recreational beach cells have been provided, along with sand nourishment. The structures and sand fill work together reducing the incoming wave energy and protecting the shoreline, while providing a recreational amenity. With time, there will be some sand losses, and beach nourishment is needed. These projects involve multi-year monitoring as a proactive way to forecast the frequency and quantity of sand needed. Based on beach survey and sediment testing, sometimes the original sand is mixed in with fine material that flattens the beach slope and increases the potential for storm damages. The presentation will discuss the process of building a resilient beach shoreline with multiple case studies shown, with the following considerations:
- Protecting the shoreline in a variety of water levels
- Selection of coastal design criteria
- Unique combination of man-made structures and natural (beach nourishment)
- Design and construction process
- A summary of lessons learned from design and monitoring
- Stability of beach fill material
- Resilient shoreline management
During the Spring of 2024, the Ottawa Conservation District (OCD) received a $1 million contract from Ottawa County to conduct a 5-year project focused on comprehensively monitoring every HUC 12 watershed in the county for E. coli, nutrients, hydrology, habitat, fish & macroinvertebrates, etc. This funding was made available through a class action lawsuit that delivered settlements to many counties, municipalities, and MS4 communities with 303 (d) listed impaired waterbodies. Not only will this provide valuable information about watershed conditions, but it will also allow the OCD to identify critical areas to help target financial and technical assistance and will help in applying for future grants. OCD’s watershed staff will go through the timeline and goals of the monitoring program, the educational and volunteer opportunities through the program, and will discuss findings so far from the first few years. Learn more at www.ottawacd.org/water_quality_monitoring/.
Bactiquick Panel
Day 2 Plenary - 11:00 - 11:45 a.m.
In this session panelists will discuss how Bactiquick can become part of a beach sampling program and how individual beach thresholds for advisories can be developed and provide statistical results.
Rapid Testing
Track 1 Breakout Sessions - 1:00 - 2:40
(Location: Hagerty Center)
Ottawa County Department of Public Health (OCDPH) serves a Lake Michigan shoreline community where rapid, accurate beach water quality monitoring is a seasonal public health priority. Through a 2025 EGLE grant, OCDPH upgraded to the IDEXX TECTA rapid testing system, reducing sample result turnaround from 18 hours to as little as four, while increasing the number of beaches that are sampled. Results are automatically routed to a public-facing Power BI dashboard that calculates water quality metrics and pushes alerts when water quality standards are exceeded. This session will walk through OCDPH's first full season with TECTA, offering an honest look at implementation, lessons learned, and the public health impact of getting accurate beach safety information into the hands of swimmers faster than ever before.
Gen-Spot® is an innovative molecular tool for rapid and accurate assessment of recreational water quality through RNA-based detection of Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci, the key indicators defined by regulatory frameworks. Unlike conventional culture-based methods requiring 18–48 hours, Gen-Spot® delivers results within approximately 3 hours. By targeting RNA, it detects specifically viable and viable but non-culturable (VBNC) bacteria, providing a more biologically relevant measure of pollution. The method has been validated across diverse aquatic environments and widely deployed along the French shoreline, demonstrating robustness under varying conditions. Overall, Gen-Spot® enables near real-time, data-driven management of bathing water quality, supporting timely decision-making and improved protection of public health.
Beach managers face a structural timing problem: culture-based E. coli methods require 18–24 hours, meaning today's notification decisions rest on yesterday's water. This presentation shares peer-reviewed field validation results (Water Research, 2026) from a continuous, in-situ tryptophan-like fluorescence (TLF) sensor deployed across twelve sites on two continents — including Cleveland's Euclid Creek, the Chicago Calumet River, Boston-area waters, Boulder Creek, and the Seine in Paris during the 2024 Olympics swim season. Paired against EPA-approved Colilert and membrane filtration, a machine learning model achieved a 19% mean absolute percentage error on temporally held-out data spanning more than four orders of magnitude, with binary classification at the Paris bathing-water threshold exceeding 90% balanced accuracy. We discuss what continuous TLF can and cannot do for beach programs, how it complements rather than replaces culture-based methods, and operational realities including biofouling, calibration drift, and integration with existing notification workflows. The session closes with preliminary observations from the next-generation v1.2 sensor — featuring improved photomultiplier sensitivity plus onboard temperature and turbidity compensation — and implications for state, tribal, and local beach programs evaluating continuous microbial monitoring within BEACH Act and risk communication frameworks.
Why are we still testing yesterday’s water? Bactiquick, the ‘lab in your pocket’, allows near real-time bacterial water quality data providing a new level of environmental insight. This session describes the development of a new App to utilise the accumulation of real-time data from multiple locations to produce water quality maps and trends forming a ‘Water Intelligence Network’ (WIN). Combining this data with environmental signals (tides, weather, storm overflows) using an AI platform will move the WIN from showing observed results to predicting risk.
For goal 1, we will present how optical brighteners have been used by researchers in formal (peer-reviewed publications) and informal (e.g., citizen science) settings. For goal 2, laboratory methods included controlled experiments using of known household detergents to determine method sensitivity. Field work included comparing water samples from a small West Michigan watershed for optical brighteners, Colilert- 18™ and a molecular based method (ddPCR) for human DNA markers (HF183).
Community Engagement
Track 2 Breakout Sessions - 1:00 - 2:40 p.m.
(Location: Delamar)
This session presents a long-term, place-based approach to integrating environmental monitoring with public communication to improve beach health outcomes in the Great Lakes region. Using over two decades of water quality monitoring from Racine, Wisconsin, the City of Racine Public Health Department developed intentionally designed, community-facing report cards that translate complex environmental data into accessible information. These tools are embedded within a broader communication system that includes daily beach status updates, public service announcements, and community engagement, all designed to build trust, support informed behavior, and strengthen environmental governance. The session highlights how this integrated model connects scientific credibility, communication strategy, and community partnerships to drive measurable improvements in beach conditions and public use. This approach offers a replicable framework for translating environmental data into action across coastal and freshwater systems.
Canada geese contribute to elevated E. coli levels at public beaches, posing human health risks and triggering closures. While natural shorelines improve water quality and habitat, these benefits alone do not always motivate public action. In fall 2025, the Watershed Council paired a shoreline restoration project with a reframed outreach message, “Block the Flock,” linking vegetation to goose deterrence, beach access, and public health. This approach generated strong community interest despite modest event attendance. The project demonstrates how strategic messaging can increase engagement by connecting ecological practices to visible, locally relevant outcomes.
This presentation explores the partnership between the Galveston Bay Foundation and Texas Stream Team to integrate IDEXX bacteria monitoring into Texas' statewide community science water quality monitoring program. Attendees will learn how grant funding is supporting the development of a state-approved Quality Assurance Project Plan, standardized laboratory procedures, and volunteer training. The session will also highlight the pathway for approved community science bacteria data to be submitted to the Texas Surface Water Quality Monitoring Information System and used in Texas' Integrated Report. Join us to learn how this collaborative effort is expanding volunteer bacteria monitoring while strengthening statewide water quality assessments.
Michigan is investing in a once-in-a-generation transformation of its infrastructure and needs a workforce that is ready to meet the moment. Michigan’s vision is to build a strong, robust network of state, regional, and local partners that prepares Michiganders for high-demand infrastructure careers. As the state’s leader in workforce development, LEO is aligning industry, workforce, labor, and community organizations to create a unified, statewide approach to preparing the infrastructure workforce, through the Building Michigan’s Infrastructure Workforce program (the BMIW program).
Sand Quality and HABs
Track 1 Breakout Sessions - 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
(Location: Hagerty Center)
This session explores beach sand as an often-overlooked environmental matrix with relevance for public health protection. It presents findings from a two-year assessment of microbiological contamination in sand from Blue Flag beaches, including fungi and faecal indicator bacteria. The session examines spatial and seasonal patterns and discusses the influence of environmental and human-related factors on sand quality. Results are framed within current beach monitoring practices to highlight existing gaps. The session concludes by considering how sand monitoring could complement bathing water surveillance and support improved coastal management.
Wastewater surveillance is now formally embedded in EU public-health infrastructure under the revised Urban Wastewater Directive (EU) 2024/3019—yet fungi and antifungals remain absent from the default minimum surveillance package, creating a critical regulatory gap, which is not exlusive of the EU. This talk argues for expanding wastewater monitoring to include fungal threats (e.g., Candida auris, Aspergillus fumigatus) and antifungal residues, particularly where treated wastewater is discharged or reused (e.g., irrigation and aerosol exposure pathways).
Drawing on emerging evidence and operational examples (including hospital catchment monitoring in Lisbon), it outlines a practical, tiered toolbox—qPCR for sensitive detection, culture/AST for recovery and resistance profiling, and sequencing when source attribution is needed.
Finally, it proposes linking wastewater signals to concrete actions (clinical screening, IPC measures, treatment optimisation, and reuse risk management), using PNEC-based thresholds to prioritise antifungals for monitoring as QMRA evidence matures.
Harmful algal blooms caused by Ostreopsis species are an increasing threat to coastal ecosystems and public health, specifically in highly touristic areas. Traditional microscopy-based monitoring is limited in its ability to deliver rapid results and distinguish closely related species with different toxicities, leading to delayed or uncertain detection. Following health incidents linked to Ostreopsis cf. ovata in 2021 on the French Basque coast (Atlantic Ocean), targeted investigations confirmed recurrent blooms in this region. To address these limitations, we developed a rapid and sensitive qPCR-based method enabling species-specific detection and quantification of Ostreopsis cf. ovata and Ostreopsis sp. 9 (formerly known as Ostreopsis cf. siamensis) within four hours. Integrated into an operational monitoring framework, this approach may improve bloom characterization and support new management strategies for health protection.
With more than 10,000 water bodies, Michigan is a water wonderland. Learn about how State of Michigan agencies respond to harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the state’s waters and how beach managers can play an integral role in HABs response. The presentation will provide an overview of the program, discuss what we know about HABs in Michigan and their health impacts, and explore the resources available to support protecting public health. We will end with a discussion of the audience’s experiences with HABs in their work.
Microcystin exposure at recreational beaches is often evaluated through water monitoring alone, but beach users and workers may encounter cyanotoxins through additional pathways. This presentation will highlight two emerging exposure routes at Lake Erie beaches: inhalation of aerosolized microcystin and contact with contaminated foreshore sands affected by beach grooming. Nasal swab monitoring showed that microcystin can be detected in workers during bloom conditions, while paired sand sampling showed that mechanical grooming may redistribute microcystin containing organic material across the foreshore. Together, these findings suggest that beach health risk assessments should consider water, air, and sand as connected exposure environments.
Community Engagement
Track 2 Breakout Sessions 3:00 - 4:40
(Location: Delamar)
Every Michigan coastal community is unique, and has assets worth protecting. In 2025 the Van Buren Conservation District conducted coastal resilience outreach and education in Van Buren County (VBC) coastal communities. Through planning a successful "Dune Day" event, developing a multi-faceted library display, designing an educational mailer, building relationships with local leaders, and attending municipal meetings to garner community input, we always kept our intended audience at the forefront of our minds. As is the case with most Michigan coastal communities, VBC's audience is diverse to say the least. This presentation will focus on some of the key coastal resilience take-aways we learned through our project research, and the steps we took to ensure our efforts were accessible to ALL of our residents.
The Michigan Coastal Management Program and Michigan State University Coastal Processes and Geomorphology Lab are collaborating to launch a community science program that engages Michigan coastal communities in collecting data for education and management. A pilot project with the Bridgman Coastal Resiliency Committee at Weko Beach focuses on monitoring beach and foredune recovery following high lake levels between 2013 and 2020. After significant erosion during peak water levels, the beach has widened and dunes are beginning to reform, creating an opportunity to study recovery processes. Community members collect elevation data using Apple LiDAR and Ground Control Points, enabling repeated mapping and analysis of changes over time. Initial results from late 2025 to early 2026 show measurable sand deposition driven by winter winds, demonstrating both dune recovery and the effectiveness of this community-based research approach.
The session will provide an overview of the annually hosted Lake Erie Awareness Day celebration created to support family-friendly, environmental education-driven tourism to the Lake Erie islands. Partnership development, media engagement, and event marketing lessons learned will be shared. Event activities for diverse audiences will be highlighted in this session along with strategies for large-scale education-focused event execution.
The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act, enacted by Congress in 2000, aims to protect public health in coastal recreational waters. The Texas Beach Watch (TBW) program of the Texas General Land Office currently monitors water quality for Enterococcus bacteria at over 172 beach sites. To enhance public accessibility and decision-support capabilities, an interactive statewide AI-enabled Enterococcus predictor (ePredictor) was developed, deployed, and evaluated. The development process and features will be presented, including an introduction to the heat map for displaying high-alert locations in real time, along with linear plots of observed data and model predictions.
Three years of field work with volunteers across the Lake Erie watershed, testing whether Roth R-Cards can give communities a reliable, affordable way to check if their local swimming spots can make them sick. We've compared results against established lab methods with partners at Niagara College, McMaster, and Swim Drink Fish, and learned a lot about what works in real-world conditions. The short version: community scientists can generate meaningful E. coli data at beaches nobody else is watching, and we're here to share what we've learned.
Remediation and Mitigation
Plenary Session (Location: Hagerty Center)
This presentation highlights the range of projects The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay (TWC) has implemented over the past 15 years to reduce bacterial contamination and to protect public health at local beaches. Using long-term bacterial monitoring data as a foundation, TWC has partnered with waterfront communities along Grand Traverse Bay to design and install green infrastructure and nature-based solutions that address polluted stormwater before it reaches nearshore waters. The presentation also provides a detailed case study of recent installations in the Village of Northport, a small coastal community on Grand Traverse Bay. Located in northwest lower Michigan, the Grand Traverse Bay region is known for its high-quality natural resources and abundant public beaches. However, increased development and associated stormwater runoff have caused elevated levels of harmful bacteria at some local beaches after rain events, occasionally resulting in temporary beach closures. For more than 25 years, TWC has monitored bacteria levels at local beaches, using these long-term data to identify contamination trends and prioritize hotspots where targeted mitigation would most effectively protect public health. These monitoring efforts have guided TWC’s partnerships with multiple waterfront communities along Grand Traverse Bay to improve water quality and protect public health at local beaches. Using a combination of federal, state, and private grant funding, TWC has implemented projects in the City of Traverse City and the villages of Northport, Suttons Bay, and Elk Rapids. These projects use green infrastructure and nature-based solutions – including rain gardens, infiltration trenches, bioswales, and storm tree boxes – to capture, filter, and infiltrate stormwater carrying harmful bacteria. Together, these projects prevent more than 80 million gallons of stormwater a year from entering the bay and impacting recreational water quality. A focal point of the presentation is TWC’s recent work in the Village of Northport. In 2018 and 2024, TWC partnered with the village to address stormwater coming from two priority areas that were negatively affecting the community’s main public beach and causing periodic beach closures. With funding from EPA’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, TWC installed underground infiltration trenches along Nagonaba Street in front of the village office and in the local high school parking lot. Additionally, 6 street tree boxes were installed along Nagonaba Street and four rain gardens were installed at strategic locations. Together, these projects prevent more than 2.9 million gallons of stormwater annually from reaching Grand Traverse Bay. The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay is a nonprofit organization based in Traverse City, Michigan whose mission is to advocate for clean water in Grand Traverse Bay and protect and preserve the Bay's watershed.
Ottawa County's Lake Michigan beaches consistently demonstrate strong water quality. Decades of routine E. coli monitoring have confirmed background levels typically ranging from 10 to 50 CFU and frequently near zero, well within safe swimming standards. That baseline made an unexpected discovery all the more significant. When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted dredging operations at the mouth and channel of the Grand River in Grand Haven, Ottawa County's monitoring data captured dramatic and reproducible spikes in E. coli at nearby beach locations, revealing a contamination source that existing federal testing protocols were not designed to detect. This session explores what Ottawa County found, why it was unexpected, and what it might mean for recreational water quality at other Great Lakes and coastal communities where similar federal dredging operations occur regularly. It also details the interagency partnership that emerged from the data and the practical implications for local beach monitoring programs nationwide.
Started in 2022, with funding support from Meijer Incorporated and The Council of the Great Lakes Region, The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan and Ohio Sea Grants, and many other regional partners received two trash removal devices. One focused on removing trash from beaches and the other targeted to skim the water’s surface to remove trash. With the equipment being newer technology, project partners developed data collection methods, best management practices for equipment operations, transport, and maintenance as well as developed education and outreach initiatives for the highly visible equipment. In this presentation we will discuss the effectiveness and feasibility of using remote-controlled robotics technology to remove trash from beaches and waterways. Michigan partners will present data on waste collection findings and highlight the benefits and barriers to utilizing these types of trash removal equipment in northern Michigan. To better support Ohio Sea Grant’s efforts in this project, the Beach and On-water Trash Trapping Tech Team for Lake Erie (BOTtttle) was developed. A partnership between Ohio Sea Grant and Cuyahoga Community College’s Youth Technology Academy (YTA), the program, supported with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate-Ready Coasts Program, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, works with underserved and underrepresented high school students in the Cleveland area to offer educational programming and workforce development opportunities in the STEM disciplines. We are working together to engage Cleveland youth in Lake Erie stewardship activities, introduce them to the water quality issue of marine debris in their local community, and utilize their expertise with robotics to effectively operate and manage trash removal technologies. Students receive relevant job training and field experience in the rapidly growing blue/water economy and marine debris removal technologies sector. In addition to robotics care, operation, and maintenance, students support waste characterization efforts to learn more about data collection, monitoring, and management protocols. Interactive programming engages youth with their coastal environment empowering them to care for their coastal areas and drinking water sources.
The GLBN is a coalition of more than 200 business leaders from across the Great Lakes region who advocate for thriving ecosystems, economies, and communities in the Great Lakes region. GLBN member businesses represent many industries, including: hospitality, retail, outfitters and outdoor recreation, art and photography, and more. Since 2017, the Great Lakes Business Network has engaged members and educated the public by addressing some of the most pressing threats to the Great Lakes and treasured beaches, including the Line 5 pipeline, harmful algal blooms, microplastics, and climate change. The health of the Great Lakes is integral to regional businesses that focus on outdoor recreation; they rely on the lakes for fishing, surfing, scenic tours, and much more. This session will take a closer look at the GLBN’s campaign to address microplastics in the Great Lakes providing a model for business engagement that can be replicated nationally. Through this session, GLBN aims to educate attendees about urgent threats the Great Lakes, and tactics businesses are using to address the threats that jeopardize their communities, coastal spaces, and their bottom line. The GLBN microplastics campaign is the product of an 18 month collaborative planning project, co-created with GLBN member businesses, regional policy experts, University of Michigan graduate researchers and staff. Through this campaign, GLBN businesses are implementing best business practices to “turn off the tap” on plastics, activating their customer networks with public education strategies, and elevating their business stories with decisionmakers to affect policy change system wide. The GLBN is non-partisan, fact-based, and committed to solutions-oriented advocacy. We believe this conference would provide a powerful opportunity to share our mission and connect with like minded organizations, policymakers, and industry professionals.
AI and Predictive Modeling
Plenary Session (Location: Hagerty Center)
Smart Duck by Sortyx is an autonomous, solar-powered robotic solution designed to provide real-time water quality monitoring in lakes and water bodies. It uses AI-driven analytics and multi-parameter sensors to detect invisible threats such as PFAS contamination and harmful algal blooms, enabling early intervention. By delivering continuous 24/7 data and instant alerts, it transforms water monitoring from a reactive, manual process into a proactive and scalable system. The solution supports environmental protection, regulatory compliance, and public health by safeguarding ecosystems and communities. With proven pilot deployments and a scalable business model, Smart Duck offers a cost-effective, future-ready approach to global water challenges.
We present Virtual Beach (ShinyVB), a browser-based R-Shiny toolkit that streamlines the development of regression models for water quality measures, with a focus on indicator bacteria concentrations and exceedance probabilities. ShinyVB enables users to rapidly prototype, compare, and refine models that leverage common covariates such as antecedent rainfall, turbidity, wind speed and direction, wave height, dissolved oxygen and water temperature.
In legal cases, the industry standard for measuring change in beach use requires human analysts to count beach-users manually from aerial imagery. Recent advancements in machine-learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI) and drone technology have created opportunities to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of this manual method. In this presentation, we introduce an ML-enabled method to automatically count beach-users from aerial imagery.