The public beach at West Danville has tested ok for swimming again this week, testing only 6 MPN/ml.  Investigation is still on-going according to Mert Leonard, health officer in Danville.  They will be testing at least once a week, and possibly more often, and taking additional samples to try to locate trouble spots.  Mert said they may volunteers for transporting the samples to the state lab, now located in Burlington.  If anyone makes regular trips in that direction, give Mert a call at 802-684-3426, or e-mail him at mert.leonard@danvillevt.com

Mert tells us the testing is being done with the cooperation of the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), and the results will let them know if the E.coli is from birds, animals, or humans.  These are expensive tests, but are deemed necessary to find out the source of the erratic bacteria counts.

Along that line, I read in the Caledonian Record today a short article about a beach community on one of the Great Lakes that's having a big problem with geese and high E.coli tests.  They have been using fake coyotes, moving them around so the geese will think they are alive to keep the geese from coming ashore on the beach.  Imagine how difficult it must be to control the geese population on a body of water that big!  I guess Canada geese are about the most unpopular birds around these days.

We have learned that we had wrong information when we told you F. W. Webb and St. Jay Hardware have the dye tablets that cottage owners can flush to find out if their septic systems are working properly or leaking into the pond.  I spoke with John Gebbie yesterday at St. Jay Hardware, and he's ordered the tablets - in various colors so if your neighbor is also testing, there will be no confusion as to whose system is leaking - you just have to know what color your neighbor used.  

I also heard from JPA Vice President Don Sherwood today that B&B Septic is ordering the tablets for us.  We will have them available soon for our members to use.  I'll let you know more about that as I learn more.  We're having good cooperation from a lot of people already, asking for the tablets because they want to know if they have a problem.  

 We had a two very nice birds on our back lawn yesterday - a couple of flickers.  It seemed to be a male and a female, and they were there for a long time, eating bugs in the grass.  They are a bit larger than an adult robin, and smaller than a partridge.