Citizen Scientists Identify Threat to Newburgh Drinking Water
August 27, 2014
Riverkeeper Team
There's no substitute for having eyes on the water.
The Quassaick Creek Watershed Alliance began water sampling in partnership with Riverkeeper this month, and already they have identified pollution affecting the City of Newburgh's drinking water.
On August 7, citizen scientists sampled for fecal-indicating bacteria enterococcus for the first time on the Quassaick Creek. In just two rounds of bi-weekly testing so far, every site sampled on the Quassaick has failed to meet Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for safe swimming. Two samples taken in the Hudson River at the mouth of the Quassaick Creek have passed.
Among the more concerning samples were high bacterial counts in Silver Stream, which feeds Lake Washington, the larger of the City of Newburgh's two drinking water reservoirs. Approximately 29,000 people rely on this drinking water. On Aug. 7, the Entero count at the Silver Stream sampling site was 1,300, and on Aug. 21, the count exceeded the limits of a standard test, 2,420. The EPA's safe-swimming guideline is an Entero count of 60.
(Note that standard water treatment should remove the risk of pathogen exposure from an upstream source like this before it reaches taps.)
An outfall in a wetland area of Silver Stream, upstream of the City of Newburgh's largest drinking water supply reservoir. Photo by John McLaughlin.
When samplers took their second test on Aug. 21, they photographed a nearby outfall where they thought they smelled sewage.
They notified the City of Newburgh Engineer Jason Morris, who within hours had visited the site, closed the diversion gates that allow stream water to flow into the reservoir, and notified the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Morris returned August 26 with Water Department staff, and identified several Town of New Windsor sewer mains in the vicinity that run parallel to, and cross over and under, Silver Stream. Newburgh is identifying funding sources for additional sampling that might help pinpoint sources of the contamination.
For now, a source of contamination to the reservoir has been temporarily diverted. And the next step of identifying and correcting the source is underway. Stay tuned.
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