Aug. 1, 2008
The county Health Department removed an E.coli advisory from one of Washington County’s two swimming areas Wednesday after levels of the bacteria fell back below accepted levels.
The Health Department tests the swimming areas at Ackermann’s Grove and Sandy Knoll County Parks for the bacteria in cooperation with the Planning and Parks Department once a week between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Samples from last Thursday found both swimming areas had unsafe levels of E.coli. The Environmental Protection Agency’s advisory level is 235 colony-forming units of the bacteria per 100 milliliters, about one-fifth of a teaspoon.
A state laboratory found Ackermann’s Grove swimming area to have 2,000 units of bacteria per 100 milliliters, and Sandy Knoll’s swimming area to have 440 units per 100 milliliters. Sandy Knoll’s levels dropped to 18.9 units on Monday and 7.4 on Tuesday, allowing the Health Department to lift its advisory.
Ackermann’s Grove’s levels dropped to 980 on Monday and 112 on Tuesday, but remained under an advisory Wednesday because the Health Department wanted at least two consecutive safe readings, according to Margaret Anderson, the department’s environmental health specialist.
“They’re not closed; they’re just posted advisories to warn people that the water quality had tested unsafe and we were advising people against swimming there at this time,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the high levels could be a result of torrential rains last Wednesday washing in soil from the surrounding area.
“I think what happened is all that rain just really stirred things up and washed things off the shore and into the water,” she said. “It’s not uncommon for bacteria counts to go up after a heavy rain.”
Anderson said the county swimming areas normally had low levels of the bacteria since monitoring began in 2001, and that the levels breached the advisory level only one other time this year, when Sandy Knoll reached 248 units on June 6.
“We’ve had really good luck with our lakes over the period of the time we’ve testing, so it was kind of a surprise that it did go that high and didn’t clear up right away,” Anderson said.
Terry Jensen, Department of Natural Resources park manager for the Kettle Moraine State Forest’s Pike Lake, said the beach there is tested for E.coli daily, and is typically well below the advisory level.
“Usually if we get a spike in our E.coli levels because there’s an anamoly in the test sample, like if we get a piece of goose dropping in the sample,” Jensen said. A reading Thursday showed Pike Lake’s level to be 32 units per 100 milliliters.
The city of West Bend’s Recreation Division tests the water in the man-made swimming pond at Regner Park once each week, according to recreation supervisor Justin Casperson.
An abnormally high E.coli reading would be anything near 100 units per 100 milliliters, Casperson said, and in the five years he has been with the division the highest reading recorded was 67 units earlier this year.
“Every other count was either 2 or 1 (parts per 100 milliliters),” he said. “We do treat our water. We have two city wells that drain and pump water into the pond to turn it over, even if we don’t get rain we’re still turning the water over.”
The Regner pond is also treated with bacteria and enzyme applications, a blue dye application to prevent algae from growing and a treatment which breaks down particles and brings them to the pond’s floor, Casperson said.
Anderson said anyone who is feeling ill who swam in the lake should see a doctor and contact the Health Department by calling 335-4462.
“Especially with symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting and stomach cramps,” she said. “If they think it’s associated with something environmental like that, that’s really the only way we make connections is if somebody calls us.”