It has been a challenging enough season for Ocean City without the latest debacle — a wave of medical waste including hypodermic needles washing up on the beach. If it’s any comfort to Maryland’s Atlantic coastal residents (and it’s probably not), they were not the only victims. Officials were forced to close beaches to swimming from Delaware to Virginia. The danger is simply too great that someone will be injured by a needle of unknown origin. For vacationers of a certain age, this circumstance may even sound vaguely familiar. A similar episode in 1987 and 1988 affected New Jersey beaches, which eventually led to reforms in how medical waste is regulated.

It would surely come as no surprise if this latest waste management failure was traced to a trash barge or similar vessel carrying garbage to a regional disposal site, as was the case 35 years ago. If so, we would urge state and federal authorities from the Coast Guard on down to prosecute the perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law and seek maximum financial penalties. Mid-September may not be peak beach-going season, but it’s still a lucrative time for the tourism industry, and nothing ruins a resort’s reputation quite like the threat of visitors getting stabbed by used syringes. From cleanup costs to paying damages to individuals and businesses hurt by this episode, all the victims deserve to be made whole.

Add this to the late-August death of a toddler run over by an Ocean City Boardwalk tram — an incident that has, at minimum, sidelined the popular conveyance for the remainder of 2024 — and overall concerns that the summer season was a bit slower than usual. One has to wonder if the town’s slogan introduced last year, “Somewhere to Smile About,” may prove a bit strained. And that’s not even mentioning how Ocean City continues to fight vociferously (and unwisely, we believe) against plans to construct wind turbines miles offshore to generate clean electricity or that rising sea levels driven by climate change pose an existential threat. The former is often mischaracterized, and the second is frequently denied.

Still, the harm caused by dumping medical waste off-shore, whether intentionally or not, isn’t a difficult call: Let’s make the villains pay.