Lake Herman -- Mom Always Told Me Not to Drink It...

The Madville Times is participating in a water-quality monitoring project administered by the East Dakota Water Development District. At least once a month through October I'll step away from the keyboard for an hour or two to venture upon the wild waters of Lake Herman to take water samples, which will be analyzed for coliform bacteria. I'm monitoring the west side of Lake Herman; other volunteers will take samples elsewhere on Herman as well as on Madison, Brandt, and Round, giving us a good spread of data about the entire local watershed.

Project coordinator Jeanne Fromm braved the waters with me in my trusty canoe on my first sampling adventure a couple weeks ago. Fromm reports the following readings for the samples we took:

1. "field blank" (distilled water): NO coliform, including E. coli, bacteria. (That means nothing fishy in our kitchen or on my hands!)
   
2. Lake Herman Sample #1 (from a small run-off inlet a hundred meters NW of the Game Fish & Parks boat ramp on Cottonwood Cove Trail): No coliform/E. coli bacteria.
3. Lake Herman Sample #2 (from a larger, active run-off inlet just NW of Camp Lakodia): 300 colony forming units (CFU)/100 ml of E. coli and 500 CFU total coliform/100 ml.

The EPA recommended standard for E.coli is 126 CFU/100 ml (average) and 235 CFU/100 ml (single-sample max). Let's hope this single reading from our second sample site is an anomaly. For now, the Madville Times encourages folks to come enjoy the fishing, boating, and swimming here, but remember: fish, pelicans, and cows do poop in this water, so you take a swig of Herman at your own peril.