Maryland’s shorelines are getting cleaner, but some of the Chesapeake Bay beaches still exceed national bacteria limits at high rates.

“Those beaches really need to be cleaned up,” said Nancy Stoner, director of the clean water project for the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group that released a report Tuesday on the nation’s beaches.

Statewide, the percent of water samples that violated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards for bacteria levels dropped to 7 percent in 2007 from 12 percent in 2006 and 9 percent in 2005, the report showed.

The national average is also 7 percent.

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Nationwide, pollution caused beaches to be closed or advisories to be issued more than 22,000 days last year, usually after high levels of bacteria were found after a heavy rainfall or sewage overflows.

In Maryland, the pollution that caused closures and advisories on 243 days in 2007 were from unknown sources.

The council is pushing for stricter health standards, more efficient water testing methods and increased funding to find the sources of the contamination, Stoner said.

Ocean City brought good news for the state as the beach was recognized with a five-star rating by the council for the frequency of testing and consistency of clean results.

“Clearly they are taking very good care of Ocean City,” Stoner said.

However, several beaches in Anne Arundel, Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne’s counties exceeded the federal standards, and in many cases 20 percent or more of the samples violated the standard, according to the report.

For example, 42 percent of the samples at Colchester beach in Anne Arundel exceeded the standard.  

Anne Arundel county health officials took issue with the council’s use of the EPA standard of 104 enterococcus colony-forming units per 100 milliliters of water.

But for some beaches that are monitored monthly, such as Colchester, county officials use the standard of 158 units per 100 ml, a less stringent standard the EPA allows for less frequented beaches.

“It didn’t go by the same standards,” Elin Jones, spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County health department, said of the report. Last year, no samples exceeded the standards.

Stoner stood by the results, saying the more lax standard was “not good practice.”

The Maryland Department of the Environment, which works with the counties to monitor the beaches, is reviewing the report, a spokeswoman said.

smichael@baltimoreexaminer.com