OUR SUITS but it took a while, because nobody had done it before. But the criteria aren’t purely scientific; when we look at sand, it’s not just grain size or mineralogy for its own sake. It’s how the beach is used. So very fine sand rates higher, because people prefer that. And black sand beaches may be very exotic, but they’re really very hot. And in 2015, for our 25th study I’m going to pump up another criteria: smoking on beaches. There’s nothing I hate more than putting my hand down in a pile of cigarette butts. So they’re meant to gauge people’s use of that area. Like access. Bad access could mean not enough parking. Or it says, “Park Closed” on your favorite weekend. Or there’s a place here in Florida that you only get there by ferryboat and it’s fairly expensive. To me, a $60 ride on a ferryboat is not good access. So I have to count a lot of points off for that. I was surprised to see Main Beach in Long Island, New York top the list last year. The stereotype of the Hamptons is super exclusive mansions where P. Diddy and Martha Stewart vacation. How do they rate in terms of access? Well, the Hamptons are very exclusive. It’s one of what I call the “three gold beaches” in the U.S. The others are Palm Beach and Malibu. These are havens for the rich and famous, but the Hamptons also have areas with no development. And in many ways, they have not built on the beaches. They have these big homes, but they’re on huge, 10-acre lots. There are no high rises. You have 25- to 30-foot dunes there; beaches that are 300-feet wide. And they do have public access. If you go to Cooper’s Beach in Southampton — which was the #1 beach a few years ago — there’s a parking lot behind the big sand dune that will hold probably 200 to 300 cars. Now, you do have to pay to get in there, like $30. What I tell people to do is stay in Southampton and bring a bicycle, so you don’t need to drive your car or pay anything. Because I’m not going to pay $30 a day to park. So how do the criteria affect each other? I’d assume the more access you have, the more potential for crowds and other problems. Are they weighted differently?
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“If you want to make the list, you do have to have some creature comforts. But you also have to let nature be nature.” — Dr. Beach
Here’s the way to look at all 50 criteria: there’s a number of categories about the sand, water and safety — so if there’s a problem with any of those, they get knocked down real quick. Clean water’s absolutely critical. And I get a lot of criticism from people in California because of it. The Los Angeles Times will say, “Why don’t we have more top -10 beaches? Is it because we don’t have enough mosquitoes? Or we don’t have enough hurricanes?” But the problem with Southern California is there’s so much development. You may have great beauty with all the sea cliffs, but it’s where the mountain meets the sea, so you also get runoff problems. And it’s very hard for them when it rains in winter, because it runs off so quickly. How do you stop all that?
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We’ve actually seen some issues here, because we’re more developed than we used to be. If we get the right rainstorm our outfalls can get pretty bad. I know in your area and others like Myrtle Beach, when you get those thunderstorms and a lot of water, it’s very hard to deal with. You don’t want to shunt it back toward the bay, because then you foul up the water for the clamming and oysters and all that. It’s a difficult situation. I couldn’t possibly test all the beaches myself, but all the counties have their own health departments to take water samples. And the EPA puts all that together. I look at all the water quality data and if a beach has had more than a couple of closures a year, then they’re out. Same thing with safety. Safety is a very big issue. If you
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