Officials restrict access to ocean after medical waste washes up on beaches

OCEAN CITY, Md. – At beaches up and down the eastern shore, officials have been telling people to stay out of the water.

City Manager Terry McGean said what’s been turning up in the Ocean City surf is unprecedented: “I’ve been here for 34 years, and this is the first time that we’ve really experienced something like this,” McGean said, “It’s been hypodermic needles, and in addition to those, we’ve just had a lot of plastic bits, way more than we’re typically used to seeing.”

First reported on Sunday, medical waste and trash washing up on Ocean City’s beach pushed officials to restrict access to the water, and the problem reaches far beyond just Maryland’s coast.

“We know that it’s all up and down the Delmarva Coast. So, you know, we also want to keep an eye on what our neighboring communities and Assateague are finding, so we’re all in communication,” McGean said.

Delaware beaches, including Bethany and Rehoboth, also closed access to the ocean Monday.

Visiting from Baltimore, Joe Schneider was disappointed he couldn’t go in the water. Though he hadn’t seen any needles, he was watching his step:

“I was surprised. I mean, I’ve been coming down here for years and years and years, never heard nothing like this before. [I’ve] been looking for needles and–you don’t even know what kind of medical waste.”

McGean said they don’t know what the source of the waste is yet but he was confident in the city’s cleanup job over the past couple days, having found just 3 needles in total on Monday.

“Our focus is on cleaning up what we have. We think we’ve done an excellent job with that. We’ve had great cooperation from both our public works and our beach patrol.”

McGean said Ocean City will be working with local and state agencies to determine the source of the medical waste. He added that, due to rough conditions in the surf, the city likely would have restricted access to the water regardless of the medical waste.