EASTON — ShoreRivers’ swimmable bacteria testing program is underway, with weekly results available in both English and Spanish.
Every summer, ShoreRivers deploys a team of community scientists to monitor bacteria levels at popular swimming and boating sites to provide important human health risk information to the public.
The samples are then processed, using standard scientific protocols, in ShoreRivers’ in-house labs.
According to a news release, the program follows the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard protocols for collecting and analyzing samples and makes public the results of that testing to let people know about current bacteria levels as they make their plans for recreating in our waterways.
Results are posted every Friday, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, at shorerivers.org/swim and on both the organization’s and its individual Riverkeepers’ social media pages.
A second page, shorerivers.org/swimmable-shorerivers-espanol, is designed to share this program with the Spanish-speaking community.
Bilingual signs can be found at public monitoring sites around the Eastern Shore that explain the goals of the Swimmable ShoreRivers program and show users where to find weekly results in both English and Spanish.
These signs, and the program at large, are made possible through funding from the Cornell Douglas Foundation.
This summer, nearly 70 “SwimTesters” will monitor 54 sites on the Choptank, Miles, Wye, Chester and Sassafras rivers, Eastern Bay and the Bayside creeks.
Site sponsors include towns, marinas, homeowners associations and families.
Also returning for the 2025 season is ShoreRivers’ sewage pump-out boat, a free service offered on the Miles and Wye rivers that docks at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels and operates from May to mid-November.
To schedule a pump-out, contact Capt. John Carlsson at 410-829-4352, on VHF Channel 9, by emailing POBCaptJohn@gmail.com, or by using the form at shorerivers.org/programs/pumpout-boat.
