ABSTRACT

During the 2007 recreational season at Villa Angela Beach in Cleveland, Ohio, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) found high Escherichia coli (E. coli) concentrations that were not easily explained by results obtained to date in ongoing investigations of recreational water quality at the beach. To help understand the sources behind these elevated E. coli concentrations, the USGS and NEORSD sampled beach-area water for Bacteroides DNA markers. Bacteroides are a group of enteric bacteria that are being used in microbial source tracking, in hope that host-associated DNA markers could be used to indicate potential sources of E. coli in the Villa Angela environment. The USGS Ohio Water Microbiology Laboratory analyzed a total of 13 source samples (sewage and waterfowl feces) and 33 beach-area water and sand samples for three Bacteroides DNA markers. This report lists the results of those analyses, along with environmental conditions at Villa Angela on the dates that samples were collected.

First posted August 7, 2009