Coliforms as an indicator of water quality in wildland streams

BACTERIAL contamination of surface water is a growing concern in agricultural and wildland areas. Until recently, pollution issues focused on municipal and industrial point sources of contamination. Consequently, most monitoring methods were designed for point sources. When the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (P.L. 92-500, Section 208) directed states to evaluate nonpoint-source pollutants, technology developed for point-source pollution was applied to nonpoint sources. For example, since the early 19OOs, bacteria in the fecal coliform group ( Escherichiu coli ) have been used to indicate possible contamination of urban water supplies. Such indicators are the basis of many state and federal water quality regulations. Although coliforms themselves are considered benign, they indicate the presence of fecal contamination that may contain pathogenic organisms, such as salmonella, shigella, and enteric viruses. The presence of coliforms has become a common water quality test in wildland streams also. With renewed interest in nonpoint pollution sources and the growing interest in riparian zone management, land management agencies have increased the number of monitoring and research programs on wildland streams. In general, these wild-land monitoring programs are managed by watershed personnel who are not trained in microbiology and may not have …