From the pages of this week’s Quest:
Reed Canyon–how safe is the water?
This year’s Bio 101 class performed tests to determine whether the
canyon water would be classified as safe to drink or recreate in under
EPA criteria. The normal criteria is that no more than 126 coliforms
should be found in 100 milliliters of water in order for freshwater to
be categorized as safe for recreation and 0 coliforms are allowed for
drinking water. This year the average number of coliforms was 4680 per
100 millileters. This determines that the Reed water is NOT safe to
drink, a big surprise, nor is it safe to recreate in. So the low-down
is you shouldn’t really be doing anything in the canyon besides walking
on the trails.
The results this year were rather surprising, since the average
number of coliforms per 100/ml last year was 795, and the year before
1089. However, during our testing this year there was heavy rain and a
day of snow, which can account for the contamination that might have
come from storm/sewage run-off. It should be noted that similar levels
of coliforms have been detected in sampling sites within the Johnson
Creek Watershed by the City of Portland, Bureau of Environmental
Services.
Students also did an additional test for E. coli, and the majority
of students did detect E. coli, indicating fecal contamination.
However, this is not only limited to the possibility of human feces,
but the feces of other animals as well. This contamination seems to be
spread out evenly over the entire canyon, since students took samples
from all around Reed Lake. This indicates that the main source of
contamination might be the spring, since it has a continuous flow into
the canyon from the east.
-Cadence True, Isabel Gabel, Lindsey Maser
BIO 101 Fall ’03
– posted by Niels
