"I knew we would find some high levels," said Bob Kulp, administrator of the Newton County Health Department, referring to the E. coli. "I didn't know it was going to be countywide and be most of the year."

Newton County began doing preliminary testing last year, and found nearly two-thirds of its sites were unsafe for human contact because of high E. coli levels.

It was the consistent high numbers that prompted the Newton County Health Department's Board of Trustees to propose raising a countywide levy in order to generate additional money for water-quality monitoring. That proposal is on Tuesday's ballot.

"Eventually we are going to have to start posting some kind of advisories," said Kulp. "If we are testing the water and the public is at risk, we want to get the word out."

He said it also is important to go beyond that, and to try to identify the source of the bacteria - whether from animal or human waste - and get it stopped, but DNA analysis of the bacteria requires building a database and collecting hundreds or thousands of samples.

"This could be extremely expensive," said Kulp. "My five-year budget plan guesstimates $100,000 for the first year."

While the state has done some testing around Carthage as a result of the findings there, Kulp noted that no one is routinely testing water elsewhere to make sure it is safe for human contact.

"We are the only ones attempting to do some routine monitoring for E. coli," Kulp said of the health department.

Many area county health departments do not do any E. coli or bacteria sampling, and have previously cited limited staff and budget restrictions as the reason.

Lawrence County

Lawrence County officials also are hoping to expand bacteria sampling, said Alethea Goodman, administrator for the health department.

She said the health department recently received a $98,300 grant for two years for a number of programs, including acquiring laboratory equipment to test their own samples. The samples previously had to be taken to Stone County.

By putting in its own lab, Lawrence County officials hope to run samples at more sites more often.

The latest analyses, done in August, found elevated E. coli levels in 10 of 16 samples collected at eight sites around Lawrence County.

What is E. coli?