This danger has also been increasingly found menacing beaches all over the world:

"The important lesson is when it comes to beach pollution, the more you look the more you find," said Heather Hoecherl, a lawyer with the council, a New York environmental group.

Increased rain in the Northeast, most of the Great Lakes States and Guam, also was a factor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/09/national/09BEAC.html