Bar Harbor’s Marine Resources Committee Discusses Last Year’s Testing of Northeast Creek Tributaries.
Mar 31, 2026
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BAR HARBOR—Without much fanfare, the town’s Marine Resource Committee has been quietly moving forward with its work this winter, much of which deals with the protection and optimum utilization of shellfish resources in Bar Harbor.
That means that the members often deal with the water and its quality.
In a quick, one-hour meeting, March 25, the committee continued that work. While its members did so, they touched on multiple topics such as potential ordinance changes that could impact the use of Hadley Point for guiding and aquaculture, sewer discharge into the ocean, and the health of Northeast Creek, a tidal estuary on the island.
NORTHEAST CREEK WATERSHED
According to the town, it has entered the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s Volunteer River Monitoring Program (VRMP), which is meant to help coordinate sampling of rivers and streams throughout Maine. In June 2025, the town’s planning staff coordinated volunteers to collect water samples in the creek’s tributaries.
“The ultimate goal is to extend this sampling effort for multiple years to ensure a good baseline of data is collected to better understand the current health of the Northeast Creek Watershed. Results are collected and analyzed utilizing the Sampling Action Plan,” the town explained.
In May 2025, the town applied for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s nonpoint source pollution grant. This is meant to help the town inventory and analyze current septic systems within the watershed, sample streams, and create recommendations about ensuring the watershed’s protection.
While the E. coli results have come back, data is still being collated about the quality of the watershed, Chair Dr. Chris Petersen said and he shared E. coli report from the Community Environmental Health Laboratory (CEHL) at MDI Biological Laboratory. This was part of the town’s water sampling program.
The lab tested samples collected on June 26, July 24, August 14, August 28, September 11, and September 25 in 2025. It looked at eight different sites and analyzed samples at seven of those sites.
It found elevated levels of E. coli.
Water is dynamic. Factors such as sunlight exposure, precipitation, wind, and human activity can all impact bacteria levels, so the scientists stressed that the samples each show one moment in time.
However, those moments showed high levels of E. coli in the freshwater. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s quality standard for freshwater E. coli levels is 20 colony-forming units (cfu) per 100 mL. Higher levels than that is linked to gastrointestinal illness when encountered in fresh water.
“It is really high. I’ll just say that,” Petersen said of the E. coli results.
Those results show that half of the tests were over 700.
“One was 2,000,” Petersen said.
Those levels, Petersen said, get diluted before they hit the shoreline. At the mouth of the creek there is a DMR bacterial count station. It isn’t currently at a dangerous level, he said.
“I feel like we should definitely be involved with Northeast Creek and that has come up in quite a few different places in these pieces as does Hadley Point and we’re already pretty involved there, and I think we need to continue,” Secretary John Avila said of the town’s Comprehensive Plan, which includes conservation of resources as a goal. “I just feel like Northeast Creek I guess is a little new for us.”
Avila said, however, that he thinks the committee needs to bring some science into the discussion.
The town is collecting and collating that science.
“What the town has actually been doing is they’ve had the E. coli results for a while, but a lot of the chemical results, the nitrates and the other things, have been off at a lab and sitting, you know, in a frozen room waiting to get analyzed,” Petersen said. He also referenced a Quietside Journal article about the results.
There are a lot of parameters at a lot of sites, looking at E.coli and nutrients. While the E. coli report is in, he said, “(Staff Planner) Hailey (Bondy) is working with the consultants to write up a final report.”
Petersen focused on the E. coli results since those are the ones currently available and have known adverse effects.
The Mayo Clinic writes, “Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria normally live in the intestines of healthy people and animals. Most types of E. coli are harmless or cause relatively brief diarrhea. But a few strains, such as E. coli O157:H7, can cause severe stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea, and vomiting.”
Microbial contaminants cause about 90 million illnesses every year in the United States, and that’s just in the recreational waters. That equates to around $3 billion in medical costs.
And a lot of that contamination?
It comes from feces.
Feces from humans and/or animals gets in the water maybe via wildlife, maybe via an old and leaking septic system, maybe a dog did her business a little too close to the water and nobody picked it up, maybe from nearby farms.
The committee anticipates having Bondy at its April 15 meeting to discuss Northeast Creek.
RECENT PAST E. COLI MOMENTS ON MDI
Back in 2023, the committee took water samples that were collected from two seasonally closed areas, Northwest Cove (Bar Harbor) and Pirate’s Cove (Mount Desert), and sent them to the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) in Lamoine. There were 20 samples collected on ten dates. The volunteers collected data off half the samples. The other samples were frozen. Unlike the town’s recent study, these samples were taken from the site at the sea at both coves.
According to a report disseminated to committee members by Peterson at the time, “Both locations are closed during the summer due to increased levels of fecal coliform, but the source of the contamination is unknown.”
The samples were then sent to the University of New Hampshire, where Dr. Steve Jones determined whether or not the E. coli’s DNA sequence comes from humans or other animals.
“There’s a lot of presence of dogs. There was hardly any presence of humans. There was none at Northwest Cove,” Peterson told the committee members during a Wednesday meeting. The mammal fecal contamination could also have been from beaver or other wildlife.
There was also no presence of deer or cows.
At Pirate’s Cove, mammal and bird contamination was present. Mammals dominated.
The scientists ran a qualitative PCR (polymerase chain reaction), which tries to determine a quantitative amount of the contaminants’ source, seeing if there is more mammal or bird contamination.
What they found for Northwest Cove is that it was not heavily birds. It was mammals and it was not humans. There was actually no goose contamination. This was despite the fact that there are a lot of geese in the area and some at the meeting recalled wiping out on a bicycle right on top of goose feces. There is a development above the cove where dogs are family pets. A dog relieving itself anywhere in the watershed could work its way into the water, David Dunton, a commercial clammer, had said.
“There are a lot of questions unanswered,” Peterson had said, “but birds don’t seem to be a problem.”
The committee discussed making a sign about how any dog defecation should be picked up afterwards so that local clammers can keep clamming in those areas.
In July 2024, a camp in Mount Desert had found E. coli in its well water. In August 2025, an elevated bacteria advisory was issued by Bar Harbor at its town beach for August 26 through August 27 due to elevated bacteria from a sample taken on Monday, August 25.
That town beach is located off Ells Pier in downtown Bar Harbor, in front of the Bar Harbor Inn and beginning of the Shore Path.
According to a news alert from the state’s Healthy Beaches Program, “Recent enterococci bacteria results above Maine’s safety threshold (104 MPN/100ml). Another sample has been collected at this beach and results will be provided on the MHB website when available.”
Enterococci are bacteria found in many mammals, birds, and human’s gastrointestinal tract. The bacteria can also be pathogens and cause infections, but when measuring the health of a beach, it usually indicates fecal contamination.
In May 2025, worried about the health of Hadley Point Beach and the potential of the water near it being shut down for harvesting, two local women who are also part of aquaculture businesses and members of the town’s Marine Resources Committee, began work on making the beach cleaner, one bunch of algae and a few signs at a time.
The need was urgent because the water quality could have impacted both of the women’s businesses, the jobs of thirty locals and more.
“One dog poop can shut down the size of an American football field,” Fiona de Koning had explained. She is the co-owner of Hollander & de Koning, a sixth-generation family-owned and run mussel farm.
Since the clean-up, there have been no other elevated tests. They anticipate having another clean-up this spring.
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