Enhancing the Capacity for Environmental and Public Health Surveillance of Unregulated Drinking Water in Kentucky

In fiscal year 2010-2011, the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) participated in the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Unregulated Drinking Water Initiative (UDWI) with a pilot project entitled “Compilation and Cost Estimate for Digitization of Agency Groundwater Data for Entry into the Kentucky Groundwater Data Repository.” One objective of that project identified bacteria analyses of groundwater compiled by local health departments from private water wells. There are 57 health departments in Kentucky covering 120 counties. During the pilot project, discussions with health department personnel from eight of these agencies indicated that their bacteria data are in diverse format (paper, spreadsheets, lab reports, etc.), with varying degrees of general site information such as well type, location and construction. These data have not been stored under any unified system. It is proposed for the current funding opportunity to select ten health departments across Kentucky, review any bacteria datasets that they have compiled, and determine whether these data are of sufficient quality and completeness to be of benefit to the UDWI (now Public Water Initiative) and the Kentucky Groundwater Data Repository (KGDR). If review of the available bacteria data indicates that they are useful datasets, the bacteria data will then be captured, digitized and entered into the KGDR for use by the general public and public health researchers.