The Enterococcus Project: February 2, 2004
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Figure 2. The overall results broken into daily averages: Feb. 2 was the day of the storm, Feb. 3. the day after (rain stopped around 9-10 PM on Feb. 2) and Feb. 4 the day after that. Error bars show the standard error of the average for the first two days (on the third day only a single sample was taken). Again, the dashed line indicates the Public Health enterococcus limit for beaches (104 MPN/100ml). Even two days after a small storm the beach had one sample over the limit and lower Mission Creek was still far above reasonable levels. It’s interesting that enterococcus levels were higher in Mission Cyn. on the second day then during the rain; this was also true on Rattlesnake and is probably due to bacteria in riparian soilwater leaking back into the stream as water levels drop after the storm.