Safer Surfing Dude! Working with Blue Water Task Force and the Surfrider Foundation to monitor water quality in the favorite surfing spots in Corpus Christi
The ability to monitor fecal pollution at public beaches is critical for keeping beach goers safe from waterborne illnesses. The Surfrider Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to clean waters and ocean protection. They facilitate a fecal pollution monitoring program at ~600 sites in the United States.
The Surfrider chapter in Corpus Christi collects weekly water samples and brings them to our lab for the EPA standard enterolert test, which quantifies a bacterial group called enterococci. Enterococci are known as a fecal indicator bacteria, meaning that they are associated with the microbes living in the guts of humans and animals.
We report the results to Blue Water Task Force and the total concentration of fecal indicator bacteria, and the information is publicly available for anyone who wants to make informed decisions about surfing (or any other fun activity in the water like swimming, fishing or kayaking!).
This project was started by one of our former undergraduates, Jackie, and her dedication to getting water quality monitoring up and running for our beaches continually inspires updates on this project. One of our undergraduates, Maryam, has initiated a Surfrider club on campus as part of her honor’s thesis. This project has been going on for nearly four years in our lab and we are now analyzing the long term dataset to determine what environmental factors may be driving increases in fecal pollution at our sites.
Our lab is incredibly luck to play a role in this program. We don’t intend to stop water quality monitoring anytime soon, so stay tuned for updates as our long term dataset grows!