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1 January 2020 Using Caffeine as a Water Quality Indicator in the Ambient Monitoring Program for Third Fork Creek Watershed, Durham, North Carolina
Porché L. Spence
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Abstract

Caffeine has been suggested as a chemical indicator for domestic wastewater in freshwater systems, although it is not included in water quality monitoring programs. The Third Fork Creek watershed in Durham, NC, is highly urbanized, with a history of receiving untreated wastewater from leaking and overflowing sanitary sewers. The poor water quality originating in the Third Fork Creek watershed threatens its intended uses and jeopardizes drinking water, aquatic life, and recreational activities provided by Jordan Lake. Organic waste contaminants have been detected in both Third Fork Creek watershed and Jordan Lake; however, the sampling periods were temporary, resulting in a few samples collected during nonstorm periods. It is recommended that (1) the concentration of caffeine and other organic waste contaminants are determined during storm and nonstorm periods and (2) caffeine is monitored regularly with traditional water quality indicators to evaluate the health of Third Fork Creek watershed.

© 2015 SAGE Publications. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Porché L. Spence "Using Caffeine as a Water Quality Indicator in the Ambient Monitoring Program for Third Fork Creek Watershed, Durham, North Carolina," Environmental Health Insights 9(s2), (1 January 2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/EHI.S19588
Received: 27 November 2015; Accepted: 21 April 2015; Published: 1 January 2020
KEYWORDS
caffeine
ecosystems services
fecal coliform
stormwater
urban watersheds
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