Surfrider releases latest water test results

These are the latest results for this month’s Surfrider Foundation Blue Water Task Force sampling of our Kauai waters for Enterococcus, a fecal indicating bacteria, on Nov. 9.

For the sites that are tested (listed in column one), the second column (“Single-day results”) are the bacterial counts/100 ml for that day; the third column (this year’s geomean) are the averages for the past five consecutive months. The values in red exceed Hawaii state standards of 130 organisms per 100 ml for a single sample and 35 organisms per 100 ml for a geometric mean of 5 or more samples.

According to Surfrider Foundation Blue Water Task Force:

“Typically, our surf and beach sites are mostly clean, while streams and canals are mostly not. This is pretty consistent from month-to-month, including November. Most of our testing sites trended down in bacterial counts compared to last month, with only 50% of our testing sites above the Statistical Threshold Value (STV) of 130 bacterial counts per 100 mls. As typical for Kauai, most of the streams/river mouths tested were above the STV. We always recommended that sites consistently above the STV should be posted with caution signs. Sites where the geometric mean are in the thousands are badly polluted with fecal indicating bacteria.”