MST in Two Southern Maine Watersheds
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Microbial Source Tracking Project Update

12/14/2001

Dear MST Volunteer,

Since many of us go on break for the holidays, I thought it would be a good time to send you a brief update on our project status. First, thank you every one who helped us with our first sampling day. All sites were sampled, and we had some great help in the lab.

Here’s a general summary of the results. We found low bacteria levels in Blacksmith Brook, and rather high counts in the Webhannet, Pope’s Creek and Depot Brook. Next week, we will transport the bacterial colonies to Jackson Estuarine Lab at UNH for genetic analysis. This analysis should tell us which animals the bacteria come from. We’re not sure how long the analysis will take, but we’ll let you know what the results are as soon as we know. If you would like to see detailed results of the fecal coliform and E. coli bacterial counts, please e-mail me and I’ll send you a chart and photos.

Our next sample date is January 8. Please call or e-mail to let us know if you can participate, so we can be sure to have all sites covered. This time, we’d like all the samples to be in the lab by 3 p.m., if possible. That just helps us have time to do the membrane filtration before it gets too late. We’ll also begin our post-precipitation sampling in January. We’ll need volunteers who can be “on-call” to collect water samples after it rains or snows. Samples will be taken during the day like before, but we won’t know which day until we see what the weather has done, of course. Let us know if you can be “on-call” in this way, and what days/hours you might be available.

Our volunteer participation in the project is strong. We have 43.5 hours of volunteer service already given to the project. Twenty-one people have volunteered on the project so far, with several others recently expressing an interest. We greatly appreciate your efforts to make this project happen. We look forward to hearing from you regarding the January sampling. See you soon.

Best wishes for the holidays,

Cayce Dalton and Fred Dillon

207-646-1555, ext 103

CICEET funded Microbial Source Tracking Project

Project partners: UM Sea Grant, Wells NERR, UNH/Jackson Lab, University of Southern Maine and AmeriCorps/Maine Conservation Corps