Perdido River and Bay - Florida Department of Environmental ...

Water Quality Status Report: Perdido River and Bay
47
Perdido River and Bay Data Providers
Number of Samples
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
U.S. Geological Survey
National Park Service
Alabama Department of
Environmental Management
Bream Fisherman’s Assn.
Florida Department of Health
Florida Marine Research
Institute
Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission
Florida LakeWatch
Northwest Florida Water
Management District
Florida Department of
Environmental Protection
Figure 3.1: Data Providers in the Perdido River and Bay Basin
The Northwest Florida Water Management District (NWFWMD)
participates in the Department’s status and temporal variability monitoring
programs. The water management district assists with sample collection for
these programs.
The DOH initiated the Healthy Beaches Program in 1998 as a pilot
monitoring program with expansion to include all the state’s coastal counties
in August 2000. Escambia County’s Health Department participates
in the program with weekly monitoring of beaches for enterococcus and
fecal coliform bacteria. County health departments issue health advisories
or warnings when bacterial counts are too high.
In 2002, the Department created the IWR Database to evaluate data
in accordance with the methodology prescribed in the Identification of
IWR (Rule 62-303, F.A.C.). For the Planning List assessment, the data
evaluation period of record is 10 years, and for the Verified List, 7.5 years.
Table B.2 in Appendix B shows the periods of record for the Group 1
through 5 basins for the Verified and Planning Lists in the fi rst basin
rotation cycle. Data collected between January 1, 1994, and December 31,
2003, were evaluated to establish the Planning List for the Perdido River
and Bay Basin using IWR Run 19.1 (Department, 2005).
To support listing decisions, the evaluation of water quality in this
basin also includes qualitative information drawn from data in technical
reports and documents that are not yet included in the database. Some
of these sources include historical water quality or ecological information
that was not uploaded to the database because of its qualitative treatment
of issues.