Storms rolled in quickly yesterday afternoon while we were collecting the water sample at Berry’sFerry (Rt. 50 bridge) public boat landing in Clarke County, VA. We called it a day. We went back to the FOSR’s water quality testing lab to set up the water samples that we did collect for E. coli enumeration. This morning we headed back out to collect the water samples at the sites that we weren’t able to hit yesterday.  I also revisited a few of the sites that I collected samples from yesterday to compare the effect of the storms had on the E. coli levels.

While it did rain on Wednesday, June 8, and possibly into the early morning hours of Thursday, June 9, the rain had stopped by the time I headed out to collect the water samples around 7 AM. From my observations at the sites that I collected the water samples at on the North Fork, South Fork, and Main-stem of the Shenandoah River it appeared that it had at least rained some at all of the sites.  At about half of the sites there were standing pools of water in the parking areas, at others it appeared that there was just enough rain to make the area wet.  The water levels, however, in all three River stretches did not rise as much as it had last week when I collected the water samples.  Interesting though, is that the E. coli concentrations measured at all of the sites were higher this week, at some sites greatly so.

 https://fosr.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/FOSR-2022-Summer-Quantitative-E.-coli-Concentration-Results-through-06.09.2022.pdf

Remember to check in weekly for FOSR’s Summer E. coli Testing Program Results for sites located at public access and recreational use areas on the Main-stem, North Fork, and South Fork of the Shenandoah River.

FOSR 2022 Summer Quantitative E. coli Concentration Results through 06.01.2022