Comparison of Multiple Point and Composite Sampling for Monitoring Bathing Water Quality

Abstract

The United States Environmental Protection Agency's Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act (BEACH Act) requires states to develop monitoring and notification programs for recreational waters using approved bacterial indicators. Implementation of an appropriate monitoring program can, under some circumstances, be expensive. This study explored the use of composite sampling at two Racine, Wisconsin beaches over a four month period (n = 68 days) to determine whether compositing can provide a valid, unbiased, and cost-effective measure of water quality. Multiple point sampling occurred throughout the bathing season, with water samples collected daily from three or four fixed locations along each beach. From each individual sample, well-mixed aliquots were combined to form a composite sample. Individual and composite samples were assayed identically for Escherichia coli using Colilert-18 and Quanti-Tray 2000 (IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., Westbrook, ME). Results from this study indicate a reasonable expectation of a simple 1:1 ratio between the composite samples and the arithmetic mean of the individual samples. Additionally, log variance of the composite sample results did not differ significantly from that of the single sample averages (p > 0.2). Empirical values for log standard deviations varied by no more than 7% between the composite sample and individually assayed samples. Thus compositing, as performed in this study, appears to introduce neither significant bias nor additional variability into the monitoring results and stands as a reasonable alternative to data sets derived from single-sample methods. Regulatory programs adopting this approach could maintain sample integrity while reducing costs associated with recreational water quality assessment.