More than half of Democrats — 56 percent — who watched Hillary Clinton’s performance in Tuesday night’s debate say the former secretary of state won the debate, according to the latest NBC News online poll conducted nationwide by SurveyMonkey. Just 3 percent of Democrats who watched or followed coverage of the debate said the party’s front-runner did worst, giving her a net performance score of +53. Bernie Sanders scored a net +30, showing he still appealed to a significant number of Democrats. Former Gov. of Maryland Martin O’Malley scored a tepid -6 while Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb were also rated poorly, scoring a -21 and -24 respectively. The poll was conducted Tuesday evening immediately following the debate until Thursday morning.
Florida’s Healthy Beaches program faces major changes.
Already one of two tests used to check beach water contamination has been eliminated since July 1.
“What we stopped doing is testing for one of the microbial indicators which is fecal coliform,” said Samir Elmir from Miami-Dade’s Health Department.
Broward County has also stopped this test because of state funding cuts.
NOAA environmental microbiologist Maribeth Gidley said this shouldn’t raise the risk for swimmers says
“Truthfully, the test they are cutting out doesn’t have that great of a correlation with public health in the first place,” Gidley said.
Tests will continue for enterococci, bacteria that lives in the intestines of mammals. This is the test the EPA recommends for marine water.
Gidley added “by decreasing sampling, I think that might be more of a serious issue.“
A total of 34 counties have been testing beach water on a weekly basis since 2002. The Florida Department of Health’s plan is to reduce that to every other week. Fifteen counties will cut back to testing only in the summer months and four counties will stop sampling permanently. Sewage contamination could go undetected, said Gidley.
“It is possible they will miss an event, and that can impact public health, yes,” she said.
She also said she would like to see weekly testing continue.
When bacteria levels are too high, an advisory is issued. Swimmers risk a variety of illnesses. Elmir said they range “from skin rashes to ear infections gastrointestinal illnesses.”
As a result, last year there were four beach closures in Miami-Dade. Because currently there is one bacteria test now instead of two, health officials expect fewer closures from now on.
The state has submitted to the EPA its proposed cuts to water sampling frequency and the number of Florida beaches tested.
Miami-Dade takes samples from 18 beaches on a weekly basis. Broward tests 15 beaches once a week. Both counties plan on continuing that schedule.
