The Department of Environmental Quality, Department of Natural Resources, and the Partnership for the Saginaw Bay Watershed will be hosting a presentation on E. coli and the Saginaw Bay, on September 5, at 7 p.m. at the Bay City State Recreation Area Visitors Center.

Marc P. Verhougstraete, graduate student in the Water Quality and Environmental Microbiology Laboratory at Michigan State University, will present an overview of the work done on Saginaw Bay during the previous years and in 2008 including routine beach monitoring, shallow water sampling, cladaphora experiments, microbial source tracking, and sanitary surveys. He will touch on the E. coli results from the beach monitoring program and relate bacteria levels and water quality with human health.

Verhougstraete's presentation is the first in a series of discussions that will occur over the next few months on E. coli impacts on Saginaw Bay and approaches to reduce these impacts, a priority issue identified through the Saginaw Bay Coastal Initiative.

Details of the Saginaw Bay Coastal Initiative and additional information are available online at http://www.michigan.gov/deq under "Issues to Watch."

Editor's note: DEQ news releases are available on the department's Internet home page at www.michigan.gov/deq.

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