MS officials regularly warn of polluted water. ‘It hurts us,’ one beach business says

The water is blue and the salt breeze keeps blowing, but Mississippi keeps sounding the same warning again and again.

The state’s Department of Environmental Quality routinely issues beach advisories when it finds bacteria in the water, and it has alerted swimmers of pollution more than a dozen times already this year.

No beaches are closed. But the familiar drama has become a frustration for many — and while some say the warnings do little to change swimmers’ habits, others are raising new questions about whether the bacteria is a problem or just part of coastal life.

“You get sick more from eating raw oysters,” said Barney Foster, who has rented out jet skis on the beach in Biloxi for more than four decades, and said the water has never made him ill.

Instead, he said, the warnings hurt tourism and threaten his business.

“We could shut down,” he said. “All because of what? It doesn’t make sense.”

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has long tested beaches for a type of bacteria that can indicate runoff from septic systems or boat sewage in the water. They test 21 beaches weekly and use the results from repeat offenders to trace possible sewer leaks to their source.

The advisories err “on the side of caution,” said Chris Wells, the agency’s executive director.

“We want to make sure people are aware of it,” he said. “We just let people know there could be a risk.”

The trouble often begins upriver. Cracked septic tanks, overflowing manholes and crumbling sewer lines can release untreated wastewater into roadside ditches, where storm water drains that twist and turn beneath the Coast eventually carry it past Highway 90 and into the Sound. The bacteria can also come from wildlife, Wells said, like a pelican colony on a pier.

Once it reaches the Sound, the bacteria “just sticks around,” said Anna Linhoss, an Auburn University professor who studies water quality in Alabama and Mississippi. The shallow waters of the Sound and the rush of sediment from the Mississippi River already make Coast beaches murkier than those in Alabama and Florida, and barrier islands block pollution from washing away into the Gulf.

The worry hits hardest when the beaches are closed, and the worst impacts to tourism come during long-term problems like the red tide in 2019. Foster said he let go of 17 workers — mostly college students on break — that summer.

“It hurts us,” he said. One report estimates closing beaches too often could cost the Coast $152 million in annual tourism sales.

All of which is why Wells said the Department of Environmental Quality lifts the advisories as soon as it can. Millions of dollars the state earned after the BP oil spill are also spent in part to improve water quality on the Coast , and he said the agency uses the money to convert leak-prone septic tanks to sewer systems and repair or replace old pipes.

Still, beach habits die hard. Vic Johnson, the road manager in Hancock County, said his staff posts signs and raises red flags each time they hear of a water advisory. But at most, swimmers move a mile down the beach.

“The ones who wanna go,” he said, “nothing’s going to stop them.”