Blue Water Task Force
The Blue Water Task Force (BWTF) was established by the Surfrider Foundation in 1991 with goals and hopes to gather enough data to raise public awareness, increase public participation, and influence national legislation.
In the summer of 2005, Bri Silbaugh initiated the Blue Water Task Force within the Northwest Straits Chapter. When BWTF began here, testing for Enterococcus occurred twice a week for the duration of the summer. The program died down and then started back up again in May of 2006, when Katie Booth and Linda McGuiness revamped the BWTF to where it is today. Sampling now occurs once a month, testing for E. coli and fecal coliforms at four different sites in Bellingham. Katie did a great job for the past two years of developing the test designs, finding laboratories for analyzing the samples, and promoting water quality awareness to the public. We are saddened to see her depart from the BWTF but wish her well in her travels.
Eleanor Hines and Kim Salerno were both recruited by Katie Booth to take over her position. Both are currently studying Environmental Toxicology at Huxley College at Western Washington University. For the past four months they have gone out and taken samples with the supervision and guidance of Katie Booth at various locations in the Bellingham Bay area.
Fecal coliforms are bacteria that are commonly found in animal and human feces (EPA.gov). Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a wide group of bacteria species that is under the fecal coliforms group. Some strains can cause diarrhea, urinary tract infections, respiratory illness, pneumonia and other illnesses, where other strains are used as a marker for water contamination (Center for Disease Control). Kim and Eleanor test for the presence of fecal coliforms within the samples and conduct further screening specifically for E. coli.
Currently BWTF and the Northwest Straits Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation would like to thank Post Point for donating space within their laboratory for us to work. However, because we are independently taking and analyzing samples, we are not certified to hold credence in the legitimacy of the sample results. In other words, BWTF cannot legally present our data to carry weight in legislation. Eleanor and Kim’s future goals for the program includes raising enough funds to conduct certified testing for the presence of E. coli and fecal coliforms as well as to increase public awareness and participation.
For more information:
- Click here to see our water quality data.
- http://www.epa.gov/volunteer/stream/vms511.html
- http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/dfbmd/disease_listing/stec_gi.html#2
