Bacteria Levels in Sligo Creek

2007-present

As a result of the consent decree, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) began monitoring regional waterways for levels of fecal bacteria, including bacteria source testing. Here are the results so far for Sligo Creek:

Date	Sligo Upstream Site Ranking	Fecal Bacteria Results Enterococcus CFU/100mL	Sligo Downstream Site Ranking	Fecal Bacteria Results Enterococcus CFU/100mL
March 26th, 2008	1st/40 sites tested (tied with 25 other sites)	<10	38th/40 sites tested	90
January 9th, 2008	N/A	N/A	4th/4 sites tested	328
September 20th, 2007	35th/40 sites tested	720	32nd/40 sites tested	550
June 25th, 2007	N/A	N/A	4th/4 sites tested	635
March 28th, 2007	37th/40 sites tested	179	35th/40 sites tested	113

The Maryland state standards for Enterococci bacteria:

All Areas:	33
Frequent Full Body Contact Recreation:	61
Moderately Frequent Full Body Contact Recreation:	78
Occasional Frequent Full Body Contact Recreation:	107
Infrequent Full Body Contact Recreation:	151

All numbers are counts per 100 milliliters

2004-2005

The Anacostia Watershed Society's Water Quality Specialist Masaya Maeda did bacteria testing of Sligo Creek. This important work led to the WSSC's present monitoring.