Bacteria Advisory and Water Quality At Ross Bay

[robbie_0823]

From Vic news, June 21st. The sample limit is 70 enterococci (indication of fecal contamination) per 100 ml of water. Ross Bay is 105. Do people still sail in this? If so, at what level do people stop sailing? Here is the link to the article:

https://www.vicnews.com/local-news/bact ... er-traffic

[janMinicat]

Hi, in the article you are quoting Ross was 105 on June 4th. The last two weeks Ross has been less than 70, don't remember the numbers exactly, but it was around 35 two weeks ago. Yes, people still sail. Not a lot of swimmers from what I see. The sportsmen sailors get away from the shore quickly anyways. Most recent status of the weekly measurements by the gov't I find here:
https://inspections.myhealthdepartment. ... h-advisory

Ross is missing, because the advisory was taken off on the same day your article was written, June 21.

I personally follow those and do not sail when there is an advisory, but have in the past.

[bwd]

Lots of info posted here about sources of info: https://bigwavedave.ca/forums/topic/11197.html
https://bigwavedave.ca/water-quality.html?site=475#data

The water quality is posted on this site (am I the only one that knows this?). Check the original sources for the most accurate info. There is a big colourful button under the RossBay webcam with the latest water quality reading.

As for sailing when there is an advisory- has anyone been sick in the last few weeks that they attribute to Ross Bay?

[Windjunky]

I have been sick a few times in the last few weeks was sick again after friday ,thinking of putting in at clover point when readings are high, be nice to have our parking back though now that the mayor is gone.

[AJSpencer]

It was bad in the Saanich inlet in May and I got sick twice, sinus infection symptoms. It was obvious the second time as I had fully recovered for a few days after the first time and the day after the second time it was back to really bad. There was a foul smell in the bay in general, I had mentioned in my log, so maybe that's another warning system I should have listened to.
You'd think in Ross Bay there'd be enough clean water blasting by in the tides to keep it pretty clean. Surprising to see that the bacteria can really accumulate there sometimes.

[more force 4]

The BWD webcam water quality readings and the direct links to the original reports are really great to have. I’d like to know how they take samples. I’m guessing that they have a sample tube on a really long handle and get near-surface samples very close to the outfalls. It’s really frustrating when the warnings are up and not updated for a couple of weeks.
I’d be willing to chip in $ and also offer to take take some samples a hundred metres offshore after a spike and warning reading comes out.
Like several people here I think the tidal flushing is likely to reduce the concentration of bacteria really quickly.

I won’t hang about resting in the shallows if there is a warning and do my best to keep my mouth shut (always a problem for me ;) ) when launching and landing but I think the physical and mental benefits outweigh the risks especially if the spike was associated with a rain event and there’s been some strong wind and bigger tides and dry weather since.

[bwd]

I'd chip in $20 for this: https://fluidion.com/products/analyzers/alert-lab

Apparently they are using this for the Paris Olympics. Prices are hard to find but it looks to be ~$24k.

[more force 4]

Thats very generous of you BWD, I was thinking it might be a little more (to run the sample, not buy the instrument). I think SurfRiders does some of this testing, I'll ask my employee who was on their executive board to find out what it costs to run. And I wonder if they have one of these portable devices? If it was spectrometry not pesky microbes we could ask @WIndsurfish to throw something together out of spare parts

[bwd]

https://www.surfrider.org/pages/bwtf-faq
7. How much does it cost to start a water testing program?

It costs about $9,000 to purchase a complete BWTF lab set up with IDEXX equipment and enough supplies to process 100 water samples. Ongoing costs once the initial, expendable supplies run out are approximately $12 per sample. In some cases, used equipment might be available to lower the initial cost.

Contact Jaime LeDuc once you’ve decided to start this program to order water testing equipment and supplies.