Impact of wastewater infrastructure improvements on beach water fecal indicator bacteria levels in Monroe County, Florida

The effects of wastewater infrastructure construction on regional and local environments is unknown. This project evaluated the effects of such projects in Monroe County, Florida, an area that had undergone regional wastewater infrastructure improvements. We used fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) (feca...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Science of the total environment 2021-04, Vol.763, p.143024, Article 143024
Main Authors: Kelly, E., Gidley, M., Sinigalliano, C., Kumar, N., Solo-Gabriele, H.M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bacteria
Bathing Beaches
Beaches
Enterococci
Environmental Monitoring
Fecal indicator bacteria
Feces
Florida
Septic
Sewage
Waste Water
Wastewater
Water
Water Microbiology
Water Quality
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Summary:The effects of wastewater infrastructure construction on regional and local environments is unknown. This project evaluated the effects of such projects in Monroe County, Florida, an area that had undergone regional wastewater infrastructure improvements. We used fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) (fecal coliform and enterococci), as a proxy indicator of beach water quality for an 18-year period of record. At the highest level of aggregation, FIBs for all 17 beaches within the county were combined to evaluate trends on a yearly basis. At the lower level, yearly FIB trends were evaluated for each beach separately. FIB data on infrastructure project period (categorical variables: before, during, and after construction), and the influences of environmental conditions (quantitative variables of rainfall and temperature) were also evaluated. In the multiple regression models, enterococci and fecal coliform were significantly associated with rainfall (24 h, p 
ISSN:0048-9697
1879-1026
DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143024