The Meadows Center, which runs glass-bottom boat tours on Spring Lake in San Marcos, will work with community scientists across the state to collect bacteria samples at Texas beaches.
The study helped lay the foundation for research on an artificial intelligence tool that will detect certain bacteria in Texas waterways. “That is 90% of beaches that do testing, and what that means is there are levels of fecal bacteria above what the federal government deems safe,” Metzger said. “If you were to either ingest that water that's been contaminated or have an open wound and then be exposed to the contamination that way, you could get really, really sick.
The AI tool is then brought in to analyze that sample and then uses data trends to predict how bacteria levels will change in the future.