Observations on the Sound

Art Glowka and I started the first of many surveys yesterday. This was taken a mile south of Westcott cove in 80 feet of water. It was a slightly subsurface sample and the water temperature was 63 F out there. The sky was slightly overcast, so there was no direct sun.
He wanted me to look for the nutrients I can do, I got curious.
Samples were taken at 5, 7, 9 and 11 AM at the same location.
There was no reactive phosphate or nitrite-nitrogen.
The nitrate nitrogen varied between 0.525 mg/L to 0.629 mg/L.
The Secchi dish reading was between 4 and 5.
That is not a lot of nutrient and the nitrogen level is consistent with what everyone else has found.

Now for me.
the pH varied between 8.17 to 8.25
There were no indicator bacteria in any sample.
No total or fecal coliform and no enterococcus species.
There were a few non-coliform bacteria growing on the total coliform plate, they are not significant except that they a aerobic bacteria.
Turbidity varied between 1.32 to 1.64 NTUs.
The sample would be considered very clean.

Stamford Well Water - the stats

Compiled from 1977 by the number of tests

BACTERIA in colonies/ 100 mL
		above 30	not potable	1 colony	Okay	% Okay
total coliform	6.38	140	724	113	5671	85.30%
		above 30	E coli present	No E Coli
Escherichia coli	5.85	7	115	477
	tested not present	Present
cp-Crenothrix polyspora, Iron bacteria	0	4
gf-Gallionella ferruginea, Iron bacteria	8	115
sn-Sphaerotilus natans, Iron bacteria	0	23
st-Siderocapsa treubii, Iron bacteria	0	12
tmu-Thiodendron mucosum, Sulfur bacteria	0	1
tto-Thiobacillus thiooxid, Sulfur bacteria	0	3
		158
NUTRIENTS in mg/L
		above 1	0.1 to 1	0.01 to 0.1
nitrite nitrogen	0.02	6	1	276	1995	87.58%
		above 15	10 to 15	5 to 10
nitrate nitrogen	2.32	13	0	251	2776	91.32%

First set is of bacteria and nutrients. Basically over 30 years 15% of the wells have a problem, That really is not bad.
The nutrients show both the influx of fertilizer (almost non-existent) and microbial activity (also not really an issue).