On the Columbia and other salmon rivers, high temperatures threaten fish that need cold water. These include other bacteria, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides that may harm aquatic life. While E.coli concentration is a useful indicator of fecal contamination, there are many other potential sources of pollution that are not reflected in the Swim Guide. The Swim Guide's safety ratings are based solely on E.coli levels. The Swim Guide will utilize the EPA standard for Oregon beaches. The EPA recommended standard is more protective and provides that a single sample shall not exceed 235 colonies/100mL and the geometric mean of 5 samples within 30 days shall not exceed 126 colonies/100mL. If you are interested in getting involved or learning more about the Columbia River, visit The Oregon state water quality standard provides that a single sample shall not exceed 406 E.coli colonies/100 mL of water and the geometric mean of 5 samples within 30 days shall not exceed 126 colonies/100 mL. Most sites are sampled monthly and high priority sites are sampled weekly from June-September. Columbia Riverkeeper monitors recreation sites in the Columbia River Gorge through their Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Program. The federal Beach Act does not cover freshwater or riverine beaches, and the state of Oregon does not monitor swim beaches or recreation sites on the Columbia. There is currently very limited water quality monitoring of Oregon's inland swim beaches. The Oregon state water quality standard provides that a single sample shall not exceed 406 E.coli colonies/100 mL of water and the geometric mean of 5 samples within 30 days shall not exceed 126 colonies/100 mL. Grey means there is no current water quality information, the beach is under construction, there has been an event that has rendered water quality information unreliable or unavailable. Red means the water at the site has water quality issues or there is an emergency. This status does not indicate current water quality. This means that this site has been issued a Blue Flag status for the current swimming season. We may manually set the status for a specific beach if we have concerns about the sampling protocol, if there is an emergency, if monitoring practices don't exist or have recently changed, or other reasons that render this site "special." Red means the beach failed water quality tests 40% of the time or more. Yellow means the beach passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time. Green means the beach passed water quality tests 95% of the time or more. This means that rather than displaying current data it displays the beach's average water quality for that year. When swimming season is over or when a beach's water quality data has not been updated frequently enough (weekly) it goes into historical status. Grey means water quality information for the beach is too old (more than 7 days old) to be considered current, or that info is unavailable, or unreliable. Red means the beach’s most recent test results failed to meet water quality standards. Green means the beach’s most recent test results met relevant water quality standards.
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