By Andy Ostmeyer
Globe Assistant Metro Editor
As the executive director of Table Rock Lake Water Quality Inc., Dave Casaletto has a full plate. There's no shortage of things to worry about, ranging from shoreline trash - 32 tons of it and 300 tires picked up in 2005 - to nitrates and phosphates spread on surrounding fields as fertilizer that find their way into the water.
One thing he doesn't worry about is E. coli levels in the lake, despite the fact that many of the 20,000 individual septic systems around Table Rock Lake experience some degree of system failure, according to Casaletto's not-for-profit organization.
Bacteria sampling his group has done, as well as regular sampling by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and some county testing, indicate that there are no problems.
"In Table Rock Lake, what you find is just the volume of water dilutes it," Casaletto said.
"I have found almost no traces of E. coli in the main body of the lake. Nowhere could we find unsafe swimming conditions," he said.
Casaletto said that he has a young grandchild who spends much of her summer at the lake. "If I had any qualms at all I wouldn't let her swim in the lake. I have no qualms about E. coli being in the lake."
Rodney Raley, chief park ranger over recreation for the Corps' office at Table Rock, said the Corps' tests back that up. The Corps regularly tests at designated swim beaches for E. coli beginning the week before Memorial Day.
At Moonshine Beach, for example, which is the most popular swimming area on the lake, the mean so far this year has been 2.49 colonies of E. coli per 100 milliliters of water - well below the level of 126 colonies per 100 milliliters that the Environmental Protection Agency sets as the danger threshold.
At swimming beaches on the western end of the lake, the numbers also are below levels of concern. At Eagle Rock, the mean has been 36.93 this year; at Big M it has been 43.47; and at Campbell Point it has been 9.68.
If there is a problem, he said, the Corps will post the beach as unsafe until it gets readings below the threshold.
Bill Cauthron, monitoring coordinator with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, in Oklahoma City, said the board officials have done periodic monitoring at Grand Lake, as have volunteers, and the lake so far has registered clean.
"We have detected some bacteria in the lake," he said, "but it's safe; go ahead and use it."
His office did not provide specific numbers, however, despite numerous requests made during the week.
Officials at Stockton Lake and at Beaver Lake in Arkansas, where the Corps also does regular monitoring of swim areas, said their beaches have all been cleared so far this year by E. coli sampling.
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