Project Title:
Great Lakes Ocean
Research Priorities Plan—Ohio Water Science Center.
Project chief:
Donna Francy
Project support:
Rebecca
Bushon, Christopher Kephart, Denise Dumouchelle, Erin Bertke, Amie Brady,
Robert Darner, Erin Stelzer, Brian Mailot
Cooperators:
Cuyahoga County Board of Health, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District,
Ohio Lake Erie Office, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5,
University of Toledo
Project duration:
2008 - 2013
Introduction and
problem:
Water
recreation and associated tourism add billions of dollars to the economy of
the Great Lakes Region and provide numerous societal benefits. There are
several problems, however, with the current approach to establishing beach
closures and advisories. First, current beach
monitoring practices rely on methods for culturing fecal-indicator bacteria
that take 18-24 hours for results, too long to provide information on
current water-quality conditions. Secondly,
sources of fecal contamination in recreational waters are often unknown
and/or of nonpoint origins. The relations between coastal processes
(sediment transport and storage, ground-water/surface-water interactions,
wave actions, seiches, etc.) and bacteria concentrations have not been
comprehensively studied in the Great Lakes. Development of methods
that discriminate between human and animal nonpoint-source fecal
contamination are needed to help identify risks associated with contaminated
recreational waters. Finally, recreational waters are seldom monitored for
pathogens, which often have different transport and survival
properties than the fecal-indicator bacteria used to indicate their
presence.
The USGS Great Lakes Ocean Research Priorities Plan (ORPP) is a regional
initiative that includes the collaboration of USGS scientists from Water
Science Centers (WSC) in Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin and the Great Lakes
Science Center in Indiana and is funded through the U.S. Ocean Action Plan (OAP).
Goals and
Objectives:
The goal of the ORPP is to advance the science of monitoring and assessing
recreational water quality to provide beach managers with reliable, science
based information to make well-informed beach closure decisions to protect
public health. To read more, refer to the
ORPP fact sheet.
Six
elements will be addressed by the ORPP project team during 2008:
1.
Conduct retrospective/background analysis: Compile reference
information in a common database and beach information in a prototype
GIS so that team members of the ORPP can use the information in further
study design. (This work is coordinated by the Michigan WSC.)
2.
Improve existing predictive models: Improve existing models in Ohio
and Indiana so that they provide more accurate responses and operate in
a real-time fashion.
3.
Regional modeling: Identify candidate beaches and variables for
regional modeling (being done by the Great Lakes Science Center)
4.
Investigate coastal processes: Conduct preliminary work in
Wisconsin and Ohio to better understand the interactions of groundwater
and surface water and their impact on beach water quality and at all
locations to better understand microorganism population distribution in
sediments and ground water.
5.
Method modification and testing: Test microbiological methods at all
locations to identify methods that provide useful data for addressing
the data needs of beach managers, regulators, and researchers.
6.
Ensure collaboration and communication among scientists and
stakeholders.
Approach:
The USGS Ohio WSC will address 5 out of 6 elements listed above during 2008.
These activities are described below and the numbering corresponds to the
six elements above.
-
The
Ohio WSC will contribute the following information to the retrospective:
-
List of
beaches where research has been conducted, including ground-water
studies
-
List of
beaches with models (including stage of development, parameters, etc.)
-
List
where lake level, seiche, upwelling, currents and resuspension have been
studied in relation to fecal-indicator bacteria and pathogens
-
The
Ohio WSC will work on improving existing operational models at Huntington
(Bay Village) and Edgewater (Cleveland) and work with local agencies to
collect data for models at Maumee Bay State Park (Oregon). Specific
activities are to:
-
At
Huntington, install a nearshore buoy to measure wave height, an on-shore
platform to measure photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), and
telemetry to transmit data real-time. Add afternoon sampling and data
collection to existing morning programs.
-
At
Edgewater, add a turbidity probe to an existing nearshore buoy. Test
the use of three different models, each model developed for use during a
different period of the recreational season.
-
Compile
data on explanatory variables and run and validate existing models.
Monitor the daily performance of the models throughout the season.
-
Begin
to develop new models for the recreational season of 2009.
-
The Ohio WSC will not be involved
in regional modeling during 2008.
-
The Ohio WSC will investigate coastal processes at Edgewater (Cleveland).
Specific activities are to:
-
Install
six piezometers in the swash zone and at various locations inland.
Monitor water-quality and E. coli concentrations in piezometers
and in the lake for 8-10 weeks. Determine water levels in the
piezometers and compile lake-level, wave height (buoy), and rainfall
data.
-
Analyze
data to determine the effects of waves and surface-water infiltration on
ground-water levels and E. coli concentrations.
-
Additional water samples may be collected for other microbiological
analyses.
-
The Ohio WSC will work with scientists in Indiana and Michigan to test and
modify analytical methods for bacterial indicators and pathogens. Specific
activities are to:
-
Work at
four Ohio beaches along the western Lake Erie shoreline and at
Huntington and Edgewater in northeast Ohio.
-
Sampling will be done once/week (every Tuesday) for eight weeks and
after three rainfall events.
-
In the
Ohio WSC, samples will be analyzed using standard membrane techniques
for E. coli and enterococci and by two rapid analytical methods—QPCR
for E. coli, enterococci, and general Bacteroides and
immunomagnetic separation/adenosine triphosphate (IMS/ATP) for E.
coli and enterococci.
-
The
Ohio WSC will provide samples to Indiana and Michigan for methods
testing including methods that document the dynamics of E. coli
populations, identify sources of fecal contamination, and determine
concentrations of human pathogenic microorganisms.
-
The Ohio WSC will work to improve communication among other scientists and
stakeholders on beach monitoring, research issues, and data sharing.
Specific tasks are to:
U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
