Inlet Beach in Point One of the Nation's Cleanest, Report Shows

The ocean beach nearest to the Manasquan Inlet in Point Pleasant Beach has been declared one of the nation's 35 cleanest in terms of water quality, a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council released this week shows.

Broadway Beach, as the NRDC report referred to it in the report, was named a "Superstar Beach" by the environmental organization in its annual "Testing the Waters" report.

A beach was named a "superstar" by the group when it did not exceed the previous national standard between 2009-2012 by more than 2 percent, and also did not exceed the EPA's new, more protective water quality threshold, the Beach Action Value (BAV), by more than 2 percent in 2013.

The Beach Action Value figure is an aggregate of collection samples taken in a given year and how often they exceed bacterial levels that would prompt concern.

In the case of the inlet beach, the results were literally perfect: national clean water standards were never exceeded even once between 2009 and 2013.

At the beach at Central Avenue in Point Beach, results were positive, but not perfect. There, the BAV was exceeded in 5 percent of samples in 2013.

In Point Boro, the Manasquan River beach at River Avenue exceeded the BAV index in 10 percent of the samples taken and the Maxon Avenue exceeded the BAV 5 percent of the time.

Overall, New Jersey's waters were considered the third cleanest in the United States.

In 2013, New Jersey reported 492 coastal beaches and beach segments, 288 of which were monitored. Of all reported beach monitoring samples, 3 percent exceeded the Beach Action Value of 60 enterococcus bacteria colony forming units per 100 ml marine or estuarine water in a single sample.