Monitoring and Mitigation to Address Fecal Pathogen Pollution along California Coast

In cooperation with the University of California, Davis and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, CCLEAN was awarded a grant from the California State Water Board to use both laboratory and field approaches to investigate issues related to water quality monitoring and mitigation of fecal pathogen pollution along the central California coast. Our specific objectives were to 1) evaluate water quality monitoring approaches by characterizing the relationships between FIB and enteric pathogen detection in a broad range of freshwater and marine surface waters along the central coast, 2) consider the relative importance of fecal pathogen loading from different sources, 3) evaluate whether filter-feeding estuarine or marine invertebrates (mussels) may be better indicators of water quality than direct water testing, 4) evaluate microbial source tracking techniques to distinguish between human and animal sources of fecal pollution, 5) characterize patterns of fecal pathogen shedding among terrestrial and marine animals, and 6) evaluate wetlands as a possible Best Management Practice (BMP) to mitigate impairments and improve surface water quality with respect to fecal pathogen pollution.