ASSESSING CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER WATER QUALITY BY MONITORING E. COLI LEVELS

As the largest river in Georgia, the Chattahoochee provides most of the state’s drinking water and many recreational areas. Since Chattahoochee Riverkeeper was founded in 1994, the Neighborhood Water Watch (NWW) program has been monitoring approximately 400 sites along the river and its tributaries, and Escherichia coli (E. coli) levels have been used as a primary assessment tool for water contamination. In this presentation, two representative cases are discussed to demonstrate the importance of the NWW monitoring system for local water quality: 1. Sewage spill: a leakage from Big Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant was found near Willeo Park by late June 2023. Water samples collected from multiple sites downstream showed very high E. coli levels. Part of the river was closed for recreation until E. coli levels were back to normal about two weeks later; 2. Headless goats: dead goats have been spotted near the I-20 bridge by Six Flags and downstream since 2018. The carcasses were left rotting on the river, severely contaminating the water, as reported by Charles Bethea in the New Yorker. Samples from the Fairburn Road site continuously show extremely high E. coli levels. More research is needed to find the source and purpose of these goats, as well as the pollution they bring to the river