Animal Waste, Water Quality and Human Health

Indicators, sanitary surveys and source attribution techniques 341failures at the main public beach reached a high of 66 days, or 62 per cent of theswimming season. While there was public outcry at the loss of the utility, thecontamination sources were unidentified and no remediation plans were in place.ProblemMany coastal communities throughout the Great Lakes region and the USA suffer fromfrequent water quality advisories at their bathing beaches. These advisories have directand indirect economic repercussion as well as human health implications. While theproblem is recognized, there is no clear direction on how best to navigate through theavailable monitoring and source attribution techniques in order to gain the mostmeaningful results at the least expense nor, prior to 2007 (GLRC 2005), was there astandardized site assessment tool which would aid responsible authorities in directingtheir actions towards the most likely pollution sources. Racine, WI, was one suchcommunity where CSO events from neighbouring communities to the North, the localpublicly owned treatment works (POTW) and urbanized gull populations wereincriminated but not confirmed to be culprits.A series of research studies was conducted from 2000–2005 to rule in or rule outthese incriminated sources and target mitigation measures based on relativecontribution to poor surface water quality. Routine monitoring using FIOs wasexpanded to include multi-depth and spatial distribution studies. Sanitary surveyswere employed to determine when and where contamination events were most likelyto occur. Results of initial screening and empirical data were confirmed usingantibiotic resistance profiles assembled from local source libraries of human sewage,domesticated animals (including urbanized gull populations) and wildlife as well ashuman- and bovine-specific Bacteroides markers. Results of these assessmentsindicated that water quality was most likely to degrade as a result of direct stormwater discharge, surface run-off resulting from rain events greater than 2.5 cm and theexchange between beach sands and near-shore surface water facilitated by waveaction. Sources of contamination included sanitary infiltration into the storm sewersystem, non-human faecal contamination associated with wet weather events, andurbanized gull populations. In order to improve water quality, each of these sourcesand their transport mechanisms had to be addressed.Improvement InitiativeImprovement initiatives were incremental and occurred over a period of nine years, withthe most active phase taking place within the first five (Table 9.2).Pluming studies conducted from 1999–2000 revealed the extent to which a stormdrain discharging directly onto beach sands had the ability to adversely impact surfacewater quality. Two primary underground treatment chambers were installed to retainstreet debris, grits and oils. From these chambers the first flush storm water was