One of the larger concerns within the Pensacola Bay community is the number of health advisories issued in our local waterways. For most of the bay area where people swim, health advisories are not as big of an issue. But they can be in our local bayous, and they do occur in other locations.
Photo: Rick O’Connor
Health advisories are issued when fecal bacteria levels are too high. The fecal bacteria of choice for monitoring salt water is Enterococcus. This is a fecal bacteria found in the digestive tract of birds and mammals. The benchmark for high levels of Enterococcus is 71 colonies/100 ml of sample. If the Florida Department of Health finds a sample at this level (or higher) a second sample is collected to confirm. If confirmed, a health advisory is issued.
However, the Florida Department of Health does not sample everybody of water in the bay area, only those where people swim. And they do not sample each site every week. Thus, for our report, we look at what percentage of the samples taken is a health advisory issued. Historically most of the sites around our beaches on the islands have advisories issued less than 5% of the samples, for many it is 0%. The problem is more with our bayous where 30%, or more, of the samples require an advisory. There is a correlation between fecal bacteria concentrations and the amount of rainfall. The more it rains, the more sites are issued advisories.
You may ask, what can the public do to help reduce the number of advisories for any sample site?. The answer can be found in another post we made earlier this year. You can find it at What YOU Can Do the Help Make a Healthier Bay; Part 2 – Reducing Fecal Bacteria – UF/IFAS Extension Escambia County.
Below are the numbers from the sample sites as we close the spring season. We will continue to monitor their results and will post a summer season report in October. If you have any questions, please contact me at roc1@ufl.edu.
Note – a reading of POOR but no advisory means that the second sample was good.
| Site | # of surveys | # of Poor readings | # of advisories | % of samples requiring an advisory |
| Bayou Texar | 25 | 10 | 10 | .40 |
| Bruce Beach | 25 | 9 | 5 | .20 |
| Sanders Beach | 25 | 7 | 2 | .08 |
| Johnson’s Beach | 21 | 2 | 1 | .05 |
| Big Lagoon SP | 14 | 2 | 0 | .00 |
| Big Lagoon SP East | 17 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Perdido Key SP East | 21 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Perdido Key Access 3 | 9 | 1 | 0 | .00 |
| Perdido Key Access 4 | 9 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Casino Beach | 9 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Park East | 9 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Park West Gulf | 13 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Park West Sound | 18 | 1 | 0 | .00 |
| Quietwater Beach | 9 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Ft. Pickens | 21 | 1 | 0 | .00 |
| Opal Beach | 20 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Baby Beach | 19 | 1 | 0 | .00 |
| Navy Pt./ Gibbs Pt. | 9 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| Shoreline Park1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .00 |
| OVERALL | 294 | 34 | 18 | .06 |
1 FDOH has been monitoring Shoreline Park for a while; we have just recently added it to our list.
2
