They're pouring themselves into their work to ensure your waters are safe.

Swim Drink Fish members and representatives from Niagara College and Niagara Coastal Community Collaborative were on the shores of Gravelly Bay to talk about a water quality monitoring hub that covers Port Colborne and nearby Fort Erie.

The Lake Erie-Niagara Hub is managed by the collaborative, hosted by the college, and run by Swim Drink Fish with funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada's Great Lakes Protection Initiative.

The initiative is a four-year demonstration project meant to engage underserved communities on the Great Lakes in water quality monitoring, data-sharing and stewardship, and will see $1.8 million put toward six hubs on the Great Lakes.

"Swim Drink Fish has been interested in and concerned about recreational water quality for many, many years," Swim Drink Fish co-founder and vice-president Krystyn Tully said Thursday morning in Port Colborne.

"One of the challenges for testing waters where people are boating and swimming is the bacteria we are looking for only lives in the water for about 48 hours," she said.

She said to understand the health of recreational water, monitoring must be done at least once a week - and that can be a challenge for governments and communities to implement.

With the Environment Canada funding, Swim Drink Fish opened its first water monitoring hub in downtown Toronto, the second hub here in Niagara and a third at Zhiibaahaasing First Nation on Manitoulin Island.

"We wanted to make sure we are embedded in communities where there is a legitimate concern or interest in water-quality issues," said Tully.

In addition to testing at six locations on Gravelly Bay, the Niagara hub monitors water at Fort Erie's Waverly Beach and Windmill Point.

Because bacteria live for a finite period, it can't be collected too far from a lab, Tully said.

Samples collected in south Niagara are taken to and analyzed at Niagara College's Niagara-on-the-Lake campus, with Swim Drink Fish sharing results on its Swim Guide website - www.theswimguide.org - and app, which can be downloaded free from the iOS App Store or Google Play Store.

"People trying to access and be in the water can see if the beaches meet government guidelines," said Tully, as children rode wakeboards behind her at Niagara Boarder Pass.

Gregary Ford, Swim Drink Fish's Niagara hub co-ordinator, said the provincial guideline is 200 units of E. coli per 100-millilitre sample of water taken over a geometric mean of five collected samples in a given swimming area.

Ford said samples are taken every Tuesday at 10 a.m. and in the exact same six locations, for consistency, on Gravelly Bay between the west end and Sugarloaf Marina in the east.

"So far, we've found the marina has some issues with passing the recreational guidelines. The area in front of us in the inner harbour tends to exceed 400 units of E. coli per 100-millilitre sample. We're not sure why it exceeds that."

He said during one day of sampling there were at least 170 Canada geese on a small grass strip between the water's edge and parking lot at the park. Goose droppings can increase bacteria levels in water.

But E. coli found in waters mainly comes from human waste and, Tully said, other things such as pharmaceuticals and viruses can be found as well.

She said E. coli is the cheapest and fastest thing to look and test for.

Ford said most of the other sample sites in the bay are fine except when it rains, which can create run-off from the shore and increase bacteria in the lake. As of Tuesday this week, Gravelly Bay failed to meet safe provincial guidelines.

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A report will be created at the end of the year to summarize all of the findings that came out of the lab at Niagara College.

Tully said the college is a dream partner for Swim Drink Fish because of the expertise it has and programs it teaches, like environmental technician and ecosystem restoration.

Al Unwin, the college's school of environmental and horticultural studies associate dean, said the partnership between itself, Swim Drink Fish and Niagara Coastal Community Collaborative, of which it is a member, will provide experiential learning opportunities for students.

"It will help students get involved in the community . and provide data that could inform projects and programs that restore and preserve the natural environment," Unwin said.

The college has been a key contributor to ecological restoration and conservation in the Niagara community for more than 20 years, he added.

He said Ford is a college ecosystem restoration graduate who is laying the groundwork and protocols from the monitoring program that future students will use.

Students in both programs don't start until September when the sampling will be finished for the season. Water sampling started on the May long weekend and ends in September.

"We know will have a lot of opportunities for students to participate in and learn about water quality monitoring," Unwin said, adding they'll make use of the equipment used to analyze the water samples.

He said whatever data is collected by students will be open source that will be shared with Swim Drink Fish and Environment Canada.

Nathaniel.Johnson@niagaradailies.com

905-684-7251 | @DaveJTheTrib

Swim Drink Fish is a registered charity established in 2001 to restore swimmable, drinkable, fishable water. It is home to initiatives including Swim Guide, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, The W. Garfield Weston Foundation's Great Lakes Challenge, Watermark Project, Fraser Riverkeeper, North Saskatchewan Riverkeeper, and Great Lakes Guide.

