By Andy Ostmeyer

Globe Assistant Metro Editor

As a boy, Preston Ross swam and played in area streams and creeks. He was even baptized in one near Commerce, Okla.

But now, as the environmental health officer for the Ottawa County, Okla., Health Department, Ross can't recommend doing the same. He said there's a blanket advisory against swimming in the streams, rivers and lakes in Ottawa County - including upper Grand Lake - because of high levels of bacteria.

"It's dangerous," Ross said. "Basically, the swimming holes that are not chlorinated we recommend not to swim in," he said.

While baptism might save the soul, immersion in a river or stream today might not be good for the flesh. The same holds for wading and swimming. That's because the sins of the region, in the words of the old spiritual, gather at the river, which today may be a stew of bacteria such as E. coli or enterococci, and heavy metals such lead and mercury, or other problems.

It's not just Ottawa County.

Carl Hayes, environmental official with the Cherokee County, Kan., Health Department, recommends people follow the same approach there.

"When in doubt, stay out," he said.

In the land of spring-fed streams and rope swings, of wading with ultralight gear for bass, where summers at the swimming hole are as natural as fireworks on the Fourth of July, there's room for doubt.

The Globe has learned:

No one knows what's in the water in most area streams and creeks. The state doesn't survey for bacteria normally, and, with the exception of Newton County, neither do most county health departments.

In McDonald County, which draws tens of thousands of people each summer to wade, fish, canoe and swim in Elk River and its tributaries, state and county officials don't have any information on bacteria levels. And this, despite the fact that Little Sugar - a main tributary of the Elk - pours out of Bella Vista, Ark., where only 20 percent of the 25,000 to 27,000 residents are on a sewer system. The rest depend on 9,500 septic tanks, according to Bella Vista officials.

What testing that has been done has found streams at times loaded with E. coli and enterococci, which can make people sick. Spring River has "unbelievable numbers," according to one stream team member. Preliminary sampling done last year throughout Newton County found "62 percent of all samples were at levels considered unsafe for swimming due to high levels of E. coli. These high levels were found throughout the county."

Surveys at swimming areas and access points such as Lime Kiln Conservation Area and near Tipton Ford this spring showed elevated numbers in May and early June. The latest surveys done June 20 and June 27 found the numbers back down at those areas, below the point of concern, but still high upstream, near the county line.