Want to take one last swim this summer? The beaches at Ocean City are open again.
Ocean City Emergency Services announced the reopening, about a week after officials shut down public access to the ocean because medical waste and debris washed ashore.
Ocean City Emergency Services Director Joe Theobald said in a statement Friday evening that the water has been tested and is safe for swimming and surfing. That decision came at the same time as the Maryland Park Service reopened the beaches of Assateague State Park.
“We are pleased to report that after multiple high tides and several days of beach sweeping, we are no longer experiencing waste washing ashore,” Theobald said.
Assateague State Park reopened after consultation with the state Department of Health and multiple days of seeing no medical waste washing ashore, the Park Service said in a statement.
“Thorough sweeps of the beach have been performed and no additional items of medical waste have been recovered since early in the week,” the Park Service said.
The beach reopening comes as summer officially ends Sunday and the first hints of fall move in. The National Weather Service forecast calls for high temperatures falling from the 80s in the last week into the low to mid-70s in the coming days.
Authorities began closing beaches to swimming in Mid-Atlantic states Sunday when they discovered the waste in Ocean City and Assateague Island, which includes a state park and a national park spanning Maryland and Virginia. Beaches in Fenwick Island, Delaware, through Maryland and into Virginia, were shut down. The medical waste found included syringes.
Maryland, along with other states and federal regulators, has rules about transport and disposal of medical waste, particularly what’s called special medical waste. Medical waste can include biohazardous and infectious items to humans such as blood and pathological waste, animal carcasses and human body parts, and anything contaminated with this waste.
Health and environmental officials regulate handling and disposal of special medical waste from hospitals and other health care facilities and must be notified when it’s moved — and when there are incidents or accidents.