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Note: Also visit the Connecticut River Watershed Council's web page

MassWWP led a volunteer monitoring project on the Connecticut River in the summer of 1998. Citizen volunteers sampled 12 sites biweekly for fecal coliforms. The samples were brought to one of three cooperating municipal wastewater treatment plants in Montague, Amherst, and Chicopee for analyses. The last and final sampling occurred September 14, 1998.
The final report can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat® Reader. Don't have the software? Click here for a free download.

The problem:
Even though the Connecticut River is much cleaner now than it was 20 years ago, some serious pollution problems remain. One of the major problems is the bacterial contamination due to non-point source pollution (rain water running off the land and picking up pollution from streets, fields and pastures) and especially from combined sewer overflows (when it rains a lot, water from stormdrains is added to sewer water in pipes going to the wastewater treatment plants. The combined flow becomes too much to handle by the plant, and some of the combined rainwater-sewer water gets dumped directly into the river, without being treated).

Updated Results:

Massachusetts Standards for Fecal Coliforms*:
under 400 colonies/100ml: suitable for primary water contact (swimming)
400-2000 colonies/100ml: suitable for secondary contact only (boating, but no swimming)
over 2000 colonies/100ml: unsuitable for recreation (no boating or swimming)

*These are simplified standards for ease of reading. Actual standards posted here.

The following table presents 1998 fecal coliform bacteria data in number of colonies per 100ml of water (preliminary results; may be altered after more thorough review of quality control results).

Site	14-Jun	28-Jun	12-Jul	26-Jul	9-Aug	23-Aug	7-Sep	14-Sep
Northfield Boat Ramp, Northfield	ns	1900	ns	42	ns	ns	ns	ns
Rt 10 Bridge, Northfield	ns	ns	ns	ns	6	ns	1460	ns
Munn's Ferry, Northfield	520	ns	18	22	11	11	92	ns
Kidd's Island, Northfield	648	1733	4	11	5	16	ns	ns
Barton Cove, Gill	7	28	7	ns	2	4	11	35
Great Falls, Turners Falls	ns	ns	ns	ns	ns	ns	ns	96
Rock Dam, Turners Falls	420	600	16	60	ns	nd	166	100
Falls Rd, Sunderland	380	ns	ns	17	18	ns	ns	ns
Rt 116 Bridge, Sunderland	ns	600	ns	ns	ns	13	2600	17
Bashin Beach, Hatfield	400	285	32	14	19	27	7	14
Canary Island, Hatfield	760	280	36	12	20	ns	27	ns
Elwell's Island, Northampton	60	220	67	50	15	60	ns	ns
Rainbow Beach, Northampton	ns	ns	ns	ns	ns	115	ns	ns
Mitch's Island, Hadley	ns	ns	ns	0	ns	ns	ns	40
Oxbow Ramp, Northampton	6000	520	66	ns	39	ns	180	30
Tent City, Hadley	ns	ns	112	ns	ns	120	ns	ns
Brunelle's Marina, S. Hadley	ns	377	ns	ns	98	540	230	33
Log Pond Cove, Holyoke	320	ns	91	96	ns	ns	73	20
Jones Ferry, Chicopee	2900	147	82	49	3	367	96	73
South End Bridge, Agawam	4950	131	0	23	28	49	ns	ns
ns=not sampled; nd=no data

Mary Boyd of the Montague Water Pollution Control Facility processes fecal coliform samples brought in by volunteers.

Water Quality Criteria:

• Primary Contact Recreation:
  fewer than 5 samples: <400 colonies/100ml
  more than 5 samples: geometric mean<200 colonies/100ml and less than 10% of samples>400 colonies/100ml
• Secondary Contact Recreation:
  fewer than 5 samples: <2000 colonies/100ml
  more than 5 samples: geometric mean<1000 colonies/100ml and less than 10% of samples>2000 colonies/100ml
• The five samples should be taken over not more than a 30-day period and should not average together dissimilar events such as low and high flows
  updated 03/08/99

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