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Is there an industry average for the percentage of credit card declines that a membership based recreation center should expect every month. We have about 2700 memberships (5100 members) and are currently experiencing approximately a 10% decline ratio from those who pay with a credit card. A small number of these is related to expiration dates not being accurate.

In my experience, 10% isn't out of the ordinary. As a general rule, clubs that charge a lower monthly fee (under $30) tend to have higher return rates than clubs that charge a higher monthly fee. The number of declines has also risen recently as a result of the downturn in the economy.
One thing you might consider is outsourcing your billing to one of the third party billing companies. We did this several years ago and one of the reasons we did so was to better address declines/bounces. Our billing company can work on returns immediately (as opposed to me waiting until I could find the time). They are are also better at it than I was--no one wants to be the guy calling, looking for money. Also, our billing company gets automatic updates from the credit card companies (in most cases) to account for cards that are declined for the expiration date.