Fw: FYI-article from San Diego Union Tribune

[Richard L Whitman <rwhitman@usgs.gov>]

See below. RLW
----- Forwarded by Richard
L Whitman/BRD/USGS/DOI on 10/24/2006 09:11 PM -----

"Donna Ferguson" <dferguson_labhca@sbcglobal.net>

10/24/2006 11:00 AM

To	"'Meyers, Marc'" <MarcM@gen-probe.com>, <Ian.Weeks@mltresearch.com>, "'Leddy, Menu'" <MLeddy@ocwd.com>, "'roger fujioka'" <roger@hawaii.edu>, "'Richard L Whitman'" <rwhitman@usgs.gov>, "'Elizabeth Alm'" <alm1ew@cmich.edu>, <ali.boehm@gmail.com>, "'Stanley Grant'" <sbgrant@uci.edu>, "'Sunny Jiang'" <sjiang@uci.edu>, <jjay@seas.ucla.edu>
cc	"'Martin Getrich'" <mgetrich_labhca@sbcglobal.net>, "'Reza Mahallati'" <rmahallati_labhca@sbcglobal.net>
Subject	FW: FYI-article from San Diego Union Tribune

FYI

 

Wanted: A better water quality test

'Crude and rude' methods mean delays,
inaccuracies, scientists say 
By Terry Rodgers
STAFF WRITER 
October 24, 2006
Regulators are monitoring the water quality
of more U.S. beaches than ever before, but nagging questions remain about
the accuracy and timeliness of the testing procedures. 
That's the conclusion of more than 300
scientists, beach managers and public-policy experts who gathered at this
month's National Beaches Conference in Niagara Falls, N.Y. It's also the
experience of water-quality specialists in San Diego County, who are a
week away from wrapping up their main period of testing at 104 beaches.

JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune

San Diego County environmental health technician Frank Lupena took a water sample at the mouth of the San Diego River at Dog Beach this month. It can take 24 to 96 hours to get water quality test results, but regulators hope improved testing will speed up the process.

In late July, for example, a mysterious
surge in bacteria levels prompted government officials to close 18 miles
of Mission Bay beaches for five days. 
The source of contamination was
never pinpointed through testing methods that take 24 to 96 hours to complete.
This lag time between collecting water samples and receiving test results
- caused mostly by old-fashioned ways of incubating bacteria - often means
that beaches are posted with contamination warnings long after the pollution
has dissipated.
"The testing methods we have
now are crude and rude," Gary Erbeck, director of the county's Department
of Environmental Health, said in reference to a procedure that basically
has remained the same for a century.
"A test that would provide
real-time data on the actual pathogens that make people sick and track
the source of the pollution" would be revolutionary, he added.
Such innovations are on the way.
Breakthroughs in science and technology
- partly the result of federal spending to combat bioterrorism - are leading
to techniques that can detect polluted water in several minutes or a few
hours. Researchers are trying to fine-tune them for eventual use nationwide.
"We're at a crossroads,"
said Steve Weisberg, who heads the Southern California Coastal Water Research
Project, a Costa Mesa-based group that studies water pollution.

JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune

This sign was posted in San Diego Bay near the Chula Vista marina on Oct. 4. Because testing can take several days, bacteria often have dissipated by the time signs are posted.

Weisberg attended the recent beaches
conference to help develop ideas for improving water monitoring, including
how to get government officials to approve the modern testing methods.

In addition to being slow, testing
currently used by public-health agencies cannot detect viruses and other
pathogens that cause illness. The tests can only indicate the presence
of certain bacteria such as E. coli and enterococcus, which are tracers
for pathogens found in raw sewage.
Many of these bacteria are benign,
and they're often deposited by birds and animal droppings. So testing for
them can lead to false scares, in which water-quality regulators post contamination
warnings at beaches that actually are safe for swimming and boating.
A recent study conducted at Mission
Bay concluded that beach visitors weren't getting sick even though the
water and shoreline were full of the so-called tracer bacteria.
"We need (a test) that is
inexpensive, rapid, specific and sensitive," said Denene Blackwood,
a professor at the University of North Carolina.
A dip-and-detect method similar
to over-the-counter pregnancy tests would be ideal, but nothing that simple
is on the horizon. The most likely scenario is that the Environmental Protection
Agency will allow public-health experts to combine old and new testing
methods.
"I don't see a silver bullet;
it will be multiple indicators and approaches," said researcher Fred
Holland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab in South
Carolina.
In 1997, about 1,000 public beaches
nationwide were tested regularly for bacteria. Today, more than 3,500 shoreline
segments from Maine to California are monitored for bacteria during all
or part of the year. 
California leads the country in
the number of beaches tested. Last year, its public-health departments
took nearly 29,000 water samples at 562 beaches from Crescent City to Imperial
Beach. San Diego County has 104 spots that are monitored weekly between
April 1 and Oct. 31, and roughly 50 sites tested weekly from November to
March.
The expansion of beach monitoring
began in 2000 with passage of the federal Beach Environmental Assessment
and Coastal Health Act, also known as the "beach bill." The legislation
was the brainchild of Encinitas attorney Gary Sirota, a former legal adviser
to the Surfrider Foundation. The law created grants for states that adopt
water-quality standards and tell the public about violations of those standards.
In the next few weeks, the Environmental
Protection Agency is expected to give Congress a report detailing the success
of the beach bill, said Denise Keehner, an EPA official who oversees the
national beach monitoring program.
"Today, more than ever before
in history, local citizens are able to understand what the water quality
is at their beaches," she said. "Our long-term goal is not merely
to prevent people from swimming in dirty water, but to get the water cleaned
up."
 
 
Howard Sutter
HCA Public Information & Communications
(714) 834-5109