For Ruth Richardson, this is where she says her heart meets her science.
“I am a water lover.
It’s always is disheartening to see a beach closed, a family going to a state park and camping and not being able to swim for three days” Richardson said.
“They take a water sample and they send it to a certified laboratory – it’s not something they do on sight – so they transport the sample” Richardson said.
“Usually the next day, 24 hours later, the result is ready and the information is communicated back to the beach operators.
So, as you can see, they get the information on today’s water quality tomorrow.” The Oneida Shores Beach and the Joseph F. William Memorial Park Beach are local examples of waters that have been closed in recent memory due to high levels of bacteria.
“Those two scenarios combined, both the closure being imperfect, because you get your data late, and then re-openings being delayed naturally by the length of the test.
That is an obvious area for improvement.” This is where the new monitoring device comes in.
She says they use a D-N-A detector made by Biomeme out of Philadelphia.
There is no need to transport to a centralized laboratory.” She says it takes five to 20 minutes to collect a sample for testing, and about 45 minutes to get a result.