Life’s A Big Baked Apple Beach

The 18th annual beach report prepared by The Natural Resources Defense Council is in with the tide. Their top beach rating is 4 stars. Rockaway in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn each had beaches with 2 and 3 stars while Orchard Beach in the Bronx received only 1 star. Overall, our local shores had the second highest increase of "contamination closings" in the nation. Their report concluded that storm water runoff was the cause of contamination 70% of the time while raw sewage was the culprit another 19%. Common sense suggests that local sun worshippers check out local health conditions at their favorite beach before slipping on the Flip-Flops.