Keeping Maine beaches healthy

The various components:

Welcome to the Maine Healthy Beaches Program, established to ensure that Maine's salt-water beaches remain safe and clean. The program brings together communities to perform standardized monitoring of beach water quality, notifying the public if health risks are detected, and educating both residents and visitors on what you can do to help keep Maine's beaches healthy.

Summer in Maine means great times spent at the ocean, on the lake or anywhere you might go to enjoy a swim. It's hard to imagine that anyone would want to contaminate our beautiful natural waters with human or animal waste. But even though it's not deliberate, it happens.

With a little planning, practicing healthy beach habits can be as easy as remembering your sunscreen. It can start with this site, where we'll fill you in on the science behind the program, provide access to program resources and communications tools, link you to our partners on the Federal, State and municipal level, and offer some friendly advice to help make sure that all you take home from your day at the beach is a little bit of sand in your shoes and lots of happy memories.