The news was bad enough when a national environmental group this week found Krull Park Beach in the Niagara County hamlet of Olcott had the dirtest water in New York State.

That didn't particularly surprise anyone. But worse was that Krull had plenty of local company, with St. Vincent de Paul Camp beach in the Town of Evans, Erie County, and Lake Erie State Park Beach in Chautauqua County rounding out the list of the state's most polluted beaches.

Authorities seemed resigned.

"It is what it is," said Dawn Timm, the Niagara County Health Department's environmental coordinator.

The National Resources Defense Council's report analyzed water quality in beaches across the country. It found that in 2009 there were 18,682 days of beach closings and advisories in the United States, the sixth highest in 20 years.

Closing among Great Lakes beaches accounted for 18 percent of the closings nationwide and advisories with 3,300 in 2009. The Great Lakes had the highest rate of days when water samples exceed national standards, at 13 percent.

"Our nation's beaches continue to suffer from bacterial pollution that puts swimmers at risk," concludes the report, "Testing the Waters: A Guide to Water at Vacation Beaches."

It determined that almost three-quarters of the 2009 beach closings and advisories were issued because water quality monitoring revealed bacteria levels exceeded health and safety standards.

The culprit everywhere, the study determined, is likely aging sewage-treatment systems and contaminated storm water.

That tells much of Krull Park Beach's story. Its water samples exceeded state standards 57 percent of the time, and it was closed 22 days last year. Last summer, authorities there noted, was one of the wettest ever, with the rain overtaxing the sewers and sending raw sewage into waters -- a problem many beaches here experience.

Aging sewer systems "can't handle the volume," said Timm, who noted that as the water overflows, it picks up pesticides, herbicides and other matter that end up in lakes or rivers.

Officials aren't exactly sure what is in the water that causes it to exceed standards. All that rain last summer didn't help.

"It could be human, animal, birds," said Ron Gwozdek, also of the Niagara County Health Department. "It's a mystery."

He said it was Krull's worst year ever.

Krull has been closed more, he said, since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency four years ago lowered the level of bacteria that is acceptable.

In the meantime, Niagara County has applied for a $22,000 grant that would allow it to do DNA testing on Krull's water samples, Gwozdek said.

"It should help us determine the primary sources" of pollution, he said.

St. Vincent de Paul beach exceeded state standards 52 percent of time and Lake Erie State Park Beach, 38 percent.

The Hamburg Town Park beach exceeded standards 29 percent of the time and was closed 36 days; Wendt Beach water was too polluted in 21 percent of its samples and closed 26 days.

Meanwhile, authorities in both Niagara and Erie counties have adopted pre-emptive policies in which beaches are closed automatically when there is a half-inch of rainfall in the preceding 24-hour period.

Jennifer Stelmach of the Erie County Department of Health said that the report's findings for county beaches appear worse than they are.

"Some places test once a week. We test three, four times a week," increasing the number of samples that exceed standards, she said.

"To some extent, I think our numbers look worse [in the water] than they really are," she said.

ncervantes@buffnews.comnull