Fecal Coliform Bacteria Event, July 3

News release City of Coos Bay, Friday, June 30, 2017. The City of Coos Bay’s Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 2 located at 100 Fulton Avenue has been operating with low Fecal counts since Monday of this week. However, today’s Fecal Coliform Bacteria test yielded a high count. This is the same issue that upset the plant last Friday.  Fecal Coliform is used as indicator organisms to test the effectiveness of effluent disinfection in a wastewater treatment plant. While these organisms are generally harmless to us, they do live under the same conditions that human pathogens live. Since we cannot test for every pathogen in the effluent, we test for easily detectable indicator organisms. The assumption is that if we kill the indicator organisms then we most likely kill the pathogens during effluent disinfection. Due to last week’s issue, the City’s wastewater contractor brought in a wastewater expert to evaluate the situation.  This expert has been at the plant all week analyzing the process and investigating potential causes for the high Fecal count.  At this time, the City’s contractor has not identified a cause for this issue, but will continue to investigate.  Because of the potential of endangering human health and the environment this situation was reported to Department of Environmental Quality, Coos County and Wellness, and Oregon Department of Agriculture.   Prior to harvesting shellfish, it is recommended that you check with the Department of Agriculture and/or Coos County Public Health for any updates.