Emphasis is placed on the sanitary control of shellfish because of the direct relationship between pollution of shellfish growing areas and the transmission of diseases to humans. Shellfish borne infectious diseases are generally transmitted via a fecal - oral route. To accurately assess waters for shellfish harvesting, an evaluation of the pollution sources that are likely to affect the area is required by the NSSP. The shoreline survey is conducted of the shellfish growing area shoreline and estuary to locate pollution sources that could have an effect on the water quality of the area. The shoreline survey team visited 15 oyster growing and harvesting communities around Tanbi Wetlands National Park and other oyster harvesting communities in West Coast Region as part of Gambian National Shellfish Sanitation Programme (GNSSP). Collected data and observations show that shoreline sanitary conditions are not satisfactory and the areas are in the need of major sanitary improvements. Some sites, especially next to urban settlements have indiscriminate waste dumping next to the estuary. Pig pens located in or near the intertidal zone pollute the water and are the cause of observed elevated coliform bacterial counts in adjacent waters. The water quality data show that the oyster harvesting areas near urban settlements have larger numbers of fecal (FC) and total coliforms (TC) in the water than the sites that are located further from the villages. However it should be noted that in many of the oyster producing sites, water quality based on coliform counts is frequently below the 70 TC/100mL standard of the U.S. NSSP, albeit less frequently below the 14 FC/100 mL standard. These relatively low coliform counts may be explained by the relatively low human population densities in areas directly adjacent to the estuary, and as a result of the lack of the widespread use of urban sewage disposal systems with central collection sewerage and discharge into the waterway.