Location: Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-12630-011-023-N
Project Type: Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: May 1, 2014
End Date: Apr 30, 2019
Objective:
The objective of this multi-year monitoring study is to obtain data on microbial quality of an urban/suburban watershed with a variety of inputs, including wildlife and runoff from urban landscapes.
Approach:
An employee of the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS) will sample the Anacostia River and tributaries (including those draining BARC) for fecal coliform bacteria and E. coli. AWS is responsible for all supplies and reagents; EMFSL provides lab space weekly to conduct the analyses. This collaborative study was initiated in 2004, so there are currently nine years of data. This information is useful as it provides a comparison with rural, predominantly agricultural watersheds.