The state has started up its summer beach monitoring program. Eric O’Brien is the Iowa Department of Natural Resources beach monitoring coordinator. He says they sample for bacteria from all 37 state park beaches around the state and also allow any publicly managed local beach to send in samples for testing. O’Brien says they’ve already completed the first round of testing.
O’Brien says they didn’t have any high bacteria results in the tests, and says that’s probably due to the fact that the weather has been colder. The only change in testing this year will be the number of tests taken. He says they’re testing twice-a-week this year instead of once-a-week, so they can give people a better idea closer to the weekend if there are bacteria problems. O’Brien says it also gives them a better idea of trends.
O’Brien says it’s easy to find out about the water at your favorite beach. O’Brien says they put the results up as soon as possible on the D-N-R website beach monitoring page. O’Brien says the testing will likely be less of a concern right now with the cool temperatures, but more people will be interested as the weather and water heat up.