This has been a different kind of year for Charleston Waterkeeper’s water quality testing program, according to Executive Director Andrew Wunderley.
It’s been 13 years since the environmental advocacy group started its Swim Alert program, which monitors levels of harmful bacteria in Lowcountry waterways. This year, levels are at some of the lowest ever seen.
“We’re generally seeing less high results overall than we have had in the past,” Wunderley said. “And the high results we are seeing aren’t as high.”
Normally, several times per summer, results in some areas would max out the group’s water quality test, which has an upper quantitative limit of 24,196 colony-forming units of enterococcus (or fecal) bacteria per 100 milliliters of water (cfu/mL). That’s about 200 times over the state standard of 104 cfu/mL. This year, however, the highest result has been 8,000 cfu/mL in a sample taken Aug. 19 from the Ashley River near Brittlebank Park.
“That’s still a high result, and it’s still concerning,” Wunderley emphasized. “But it’s not the astronomically high results we’ve seen in the past.”
Silver linings?
So what’s keeping the numbers down? Put simply, this year’s drought.
While bacteria levels in water generally don’t fluctuate much, stormwater and coastal flooding can cause levels of bacteria to spike and linger way above state standards. When skies are clear and stormwater runoff eventually leaves local rivers and creeks, bacteria levels in most waterways hover between 10 and 100. But heavy rains flush waste and other pollutants into the water, spiking bacteria levels.
“This really illustrates the relationship between climate, land and water,” Wunderley said. “The less it rains, the less polluted stormwater there is to be distributed into streams and rivers.”
But those low levels are temporary. If rainfall washes pollutants from the land into the water, then a period of drought means those pollutants are just building up instead. When it finally does rain, that buildup will get pushed into waterways all at once. This is called “first flush.”
“That first flush of stormwater can be horribly, horribly polluted,” Wunderley said. “If you look out West to areas like southern California, where it doesn’t rain a lot, the water is filthy and disgusting after a big rain storm. That’s kind of what the risk for us here is after a drought.”
Programs fall short
Mitigation to cut levels of bacteria has to start well before things get to this point, he added. Imagine a forested watershed with native vegetation and soils. The water and everything it picks up gets absorbed into that permeable landscape. It gives natural processes a chance to clean up any water that does run off.
“But in a suburban and urban environment,” Wunderley said, “where you have all this impervious surface cover, you have this really quick pace of floodwaters picking up anything and everything for the last however long it’s been dry. … The way you mitigate it is — well, our state and local stormwater programs need to be a lot better.
“We talk a lot about resiliency in terms of the built environment,” he added. “People’s homes and businesses and the economy. But we shouldn’t lose sight of ecological resiliency and the resiliency of the overall estuary. … Every single one of these flooding events is also a pollution event for the estuary.”
Wunderley said the best way to combat these ecological disasters is to make the built environment mimic the functions of the natural environment by designing and building in tune with nature, including drainage and diversion.
Reflecting on past, looking ahead
But for now, the Charleston area is enjoying some of its cleanest local waters in years, and it’s giving Wunderley and other waterkeepers the chance to reflect on their years of fighting for exactly this.
“We ‘get’ the quality of water and habitat that we as a community stand up and fight for,” Wunderley said. “That is abundantly clear in my years of doing this work. Without the ability to go out and test and understand what the data says about water quality, we would never know.
“This kind of care in the community over time is going to leave James Island and Ellis Creek much healthier for the next generation so that maybe our grandkids can safely swim in the creek.”
Wunderley said he’s not taking this time to rest on any laurels, though.
“We are actively working on some internal upgrades and efficiencies that will allow us as a team to bring more people and partners into the fold,” he said. “That will, in turn, allow us to come together as a community and add more sites to the Swim Alert program.”
It’s a more logistical endeavor than a lot of folks realize, Wunderley said. From the time the team collects a sample from the water, it has eight hours to get it to an incubator for analysis.
“We plan out drive times, boat times, the time in the cooler,” he said. “It’s multiple teams, all working through it at a pace to ensure that sample gets to the incubator in time.”
And they do it, as of now, for 20 sites weekly for 26 weeks every year. That’s 520 samples collected and analyzed by a team of about 15 to 20 volunteers, and Wunderley said about 98.5% of those samples make it in time.
“It’s good logistics, and it’s good support,” he said. “It’s a flexible, nimble team and the all-around willingness of good people to make it happen. Everyone in Charleston Waterkeeper has a hand in that.”
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.
