"Gunderboom cuts bacteria, study finds"

THE JOURNAL NEWS
Friday, September 16, 2005

By KEN VALENTI

A Manhattanville College assistant professor and one of her students have used their research to benefit swimmers at a local beach, affirming that the 800-foot-long Gunderboom in Mamaroneck Harbor cuts the levels of bacteria in the water it surrounds.

"The inside is doing better than the outside," said assistant professor of biology Anna Yeung-Cheung. She used numbers from water and soft shell clams that Nadilynn Melendez, a senior at the college in Purchase, gathered in weekly visits to local beaches.

The results are not necessarily surprising, but they are good news for village Mayor Philip Trifiletti, who plans to meet with Yeung-Cheung to discuss her findings next week.

"It looks like we definitely are moving forward," Trifiletti said. "I think her findings kind of line up with what the county had said."

The village has been repairing sewer lines to reduce the amount of sewage that escapes into the harbor. Last year, a trash-collecting boom was placed at the mouth of the Mamaroneck River.

That work apparently is paying off, said Gabe Sganga, beach program director with the Westchester County Health Department. His numbers also show bacteria levels are lower inside the boom than out, and bacteria counts outside the boom were lower than in the past.

"It's made a significant improvement in the water quality," he said of the village's work. "And also the dry summer we had this year has impacted the quality of the water all over Long Island Sound."

The boom was reinstalled three years ago for $135,000, and it allowed residents to go swimming at the beach again inside the area surrounded by the filter. Before that, bathing had been banned since a 1999 oil spill fouled an earlier Gunderboom.

Yeung-Cheung's study so far shows the levels in Mamaroneck Harbor outside the Gunderboom generally were lower than at the Hudson Park beach in New Rochelle, where bathing is allowed.

Sganga's numbers also showed higher bacteria levels at Hudson Park than in Mamaroneck Harbor, but he said they still were within state standards for safe swimming.

William Zimmermann, the New Rochelle parks commissioner, said bathers wading into the water during the season — from Memorial Day to Labor Day — can feel safe knowing the water has been tested.

While the county numbers showed the bacteria counts outside the Gunderboom to be generally within state safety standards, Trifiletti said he was not ready to remove the filter.

Yeung-Cheung and Melendez's results show the level of E. coli bacteria was 84 percent lower inside the filter than outside. For other coliform bacteria, the count was about 40 percent lower. They also compared the results with water from a beach at the Edith G. Read sanctuary in Rye, where counts were similar to the water inside the Gunderboom.

While Sganga said E. coli is a better measure for fresh water than marine water, Yeung-Cheung used it because the Mamaroneck and New Rochelle harbors are fed by fresh-water rivers.

Her findings are no surprise to Bob Dove, chief operating officer of Gunderboom.

"We were very pleased with their results, and it's in keeping with what we expected," he said.

Yeung-Cheung plans to continue the testing and will present her findings in a talk, "How Clean Are Beaches in Our Neighborhood," at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 16 at Manhattanville College.