How to check water safety before a lake or river outing

(InvestigateTV) — A new report from Environment America found bacteria levels were potentially unsafe on at least one day at 69% of more than 4,500 river and lake testing locations in 17 states.

John Rumpler, clean water director and senior attorney at Environment America, said the group’s “Safe for Swimming” report matters as a consumer issue as well as an environmental one.

“I can only imagine that if a family drove two or three hours to go to lakeside cabin, and they were planning to spend the entire week at the lake, and then suddenly there was E. coli in the water,” Rumpler said. “I don’t know that I could put that to dollars and cents, but I think we might agree that’s a ruined vacation right there.”

Rumpler said E. coli turned up in every state in the analysis.

“All across the country in all of these 17 states, we found E. coli, which people may be familiar with E. coli as a nasty bacteria. It’s an indicator of fecal matter, in other words, poop,” Rumpler said. “And so to be clear, we’re not saying all of these waters are contaminated all the time. But about half of these 4,000-plus monitoring sites had elevated E. coli levels on 25% or more of the days that they were tested. So it’s a pretty widespread problem.”

Rumpler said the contamination comes from sewage overflows, stormwater runoff and leaking septic tanks.

Environment America’s online dashboard breaks down the results state by state.

Rumpler said he believes federal and state governments could do more, and that the cost does not have to fall on taxpayers.

“If the federal government does step up and provide more resources to address this problem, then less of that financial burden is going to be on the backs of ratepayers and local citizens of any community,” Rumpler said. “But let me say this, I wouldn’t want any local or state official to use a lack of federal funding as an excuse. Everyone needs to do their part.”

Contamination levels can change daily. Before swimming, check state or county health advisories and the EPA’s water quality portal.

Additional steps include avoiding rivers and lakes for 48 to 72 hours after heavy rain, when sewage overflows and runoff tend to peak. Water that is discolored, smelly, foamy or near a discharge pipe should also be avoided.