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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

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Citizen water patrol aims to ID bacteria sites

Rogue Valley group wants to ensure swimmers’ health

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MEDFORD, Ore. — A small army of citizen-scientists will help Rogue Valley residents learn whether the creek or swimming hole they hit this summer is a good place to cool off or might be a staph infection in the making.

The Rogue Riverkeeper organization is amassing a group of volunteers to regularly collect water samples from area creeks, lakes and rivers this spring and summer for tests to determine whether these popular swimming and wading waters have unhealthful levels of bacteria.

The information will be posted online at www.rogueriverkeeper.org and accessible via a free smartphone app called “Waterkeeper Swim Guide” so anyone can get up-to-date information on the quality of the water in which they intend to swim or wade.

With studies showing that most area streams often exceed water-quality standards for bacteria at different times each summer, swimmers deserve to know whether their choices for cooling off are safe ones, organizers say.

“There’s a lot of agreement among people that water-contact safety is a good thing,” says Frances Oyung, Rogue Riverkeeper’s volunteer and water-quality monitoring coordinator. “This makes for a real handy tool for people to access this information, and it can become a regular part of their lives.”

To make that happen, Rogue Riverkeeper and the state Department of Environmental Quality will hold a training session for potential volunteers today at Bear Creek Park in Medford.

The volunteers will collect water samples at various locations and take them to collection points. Oyung will process the samples in a mini laboratory at the organization’s Ashland office.

Some, but not all, of the volunteers will get tools to also test for water temperature and turbidity, Oyung says.

The tests are planned from June through October at Emigrant, Applegate and Lost Creek lakes, the Rogue River at Gold Hill and Grants Pass, Bear Creek in Ashland, Wagner Creek in Talent, Baby Bear Creek in Medford and the Applegate River at Cantrall-Buckley County Park.

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