A Day At The Beach With Fecal Coliform - Disease Incidence Rising In US

[hatrack]

Our planet's beleaguered oceans have been making headlines all year, with gloomy reports on collapsing fisheries, invasive species, plastic pollution and more. But a less-publicized issue hits closer to home, especially as summer revelers flock to the beach in droves.
Put bluntly, the problem is poop. Fecal pollution--mainly from raw sewage--is contaminating large stretches of recreational water from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes.

Swimming in unsafe water can lead to sore throats and diarrhea, as well as more serious illnesses like meningitis and severe gastroenteritis. Recent research has shown that, after many years of decline, death rates from microbial gastrointestinal illness are on the rise. “Recreational exposures clearly play a role in causing these illnesses," says epidemiologist Rebecca Calderon of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Pollution caused more than 12,000 beach closings and advisories in 2002--the second highest number in 13 years--according to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council. (The 2001 numbers were slightly higher, mostly because of drought conditions in 2002.) The continual rise in “no-swimming" days in part reflects better testing standards, the report notes, but scientists disagree over how to best monitor pollution and warn swimmers.

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Stanley Grant of the University of California at Irvine has analyzed warning errors at Huntington Beach, Calif. His findings, published the May 1 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, suggest that even if sample turnaround were almost instantaneous, error rates in beach warnings would still be quite high. Grant's work points to a more fundamental problem: the current “binary" advisory scheme--wherein a warning sign is either posted or not, giving the public no further information--is intrinsically error prone, he asserts. He recommends switching to an “analog" system, similar to the one used to issue ozone warnings in urban areas, assigning a letter grade to beaches from "A" to "F."

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[Maestro]

1. The older I get

the dirtier, literally, that society seems to be getting. Sometimes I just don't know where the clean-up needs to begin, but I know that I am extremely upset about the conditions of the world's oceans and rivers.

[havocmom]

2. It is in the tap water where I live

Good news is they are putting in new sewer main lines and digging a new well. Bad news, all the sewer lines not being replaced though they are over 50 years old and likely all leaking like sieves.

More bad news, seems everybody around her suffers chronic health problems and intestinal disease. The latter is usually written off as due to kids swallowing lake water. Doesn't seem to register that those of us who do not go to the lake have the same problems.

And of course, there is anthrax in the soil and who knows what else in the soil molds around here. Respiratory illness is so chronic nobody pays attention to the high rate of pneumonia and such.

[LittleApple81]

3. We have good air quality but the water has atrazine and other farming

chemical residues. I did not find out that Kansas has a high level of pollution with agricultural "chemical biproducts" until I had a friend from Europe coming to visit. She asked me where my "drinking water" was. I pointed to the faucet. She said "the first thing I read before I came was info on Kansas. And they said you should not drink tap water because of agriculture runoff." I didn't know that. So now I try to filter my water. But if you have coffee, or water in a restaurant, etc. You cannot avoid it.
When you read the "water quality report" that comes with your water bill once every two years, it is very unclear about what is permissible under the law....

[havocmom]

4. Bottled water for me. We also have salts (naturally occuring) so high

the water is classified as not fit for stock animals! But the bacteria really bugs me. I brush my teeth with mouthwash or peroxide, but I still have to wash produce, dishes, clothes and me! And guess what I have to use.

I do drop a bit of bleach in the water for washing my veggies, but I still have to rinse it well with...water.

And now giant corporations are making gains at controlling sources of safe water in the world. If we hate them having control of our gas tanks, think how much fun it will be when they control most/all food and water providers.

[LittleApple81]

5. That was one the reasons the riots started in Bolivia. An American

company was given the rights to provide the water services. The fees went up 50 times...for people who don't even have a subsistence wage.

[haverhill]

6. Water is safer

today than 50 to 80 years ago.

the notion that you cant drink the water from wells in Kansas is silly.

Maybe just a note, that eventhough the chikenlittles have been screeming that we are all being posioned since the 50s and 60s, A Silent Spring, comes to mind. life spans increase every year and cancer rates are down for everything except skin cancer (sun worshipers) and lung cancer (smokers). The doom that has been predicted for more that 50 years has yet to materialize. Not one single prediction of envormental disaster has ever happened

[hatrack]

7. In beautiful rural Decorah Iowa, a "Don't Drink" notice caught my eye

It noted that the water that flowed from the tap in the restaurant we were having breakfast in was unfit for human consumption because of agricultural runoff. The biggest problem was nitrates, known to cause problems with oxygen uptake in young children - a.k.a. "blue baby syndrome".

The same is true in Sioux Falls, South Dakota's fastest-growing urban area. The groundwater in the eastern half of the state is so contaminated that the city is now being forced to build a 200+ mile pipeline to Lake Oahe, the Missouri River reservoir in the center of the state.

Stick around, haverhill. We're just "screeming" for more of your profound insights.

[haverhill]

13. Screem away

dont know the Decorah IA situation,specificly in that resturant. I assume what you meant is that the entire town was under a high nitrate notice, not just this one resturaunt in Decorah.

Blue baby syndrome.You may want to check up on that. Dont think there has been a single case in Iowa that is attributed to agricultural runoff in the last, I dont know 50 years. And if there was it was due to a shallow ill maintained well.

I do know the topagraphy of the county that Decorah is located in. It is typified buy what is called Karst soil structure. What that means is that the entire area has a very thin soil structure that is underlayed by limestone bedrock. That means that the area is littered with 100's of sink holes. A sink hole is naturally accuring and were present before the Indians showed up. That means that those sink holes are a direct route into the ground water, which is very shallow.

The other factor is that applied nitrogen is not the only source of nitrates. Funny thing is that the area around Decorah grows many more acres of alfalfa and soybeans than corn. alfalfa and soybeans are a legume and produce their own nitrogen in excess of what is needed, meaning that excess nitrogen from legumes is most likely the problem, not corn production

[hatrack]

15. County corn totals nearly twice soybeans - your argument invalid

So, "the area around Decorah grows many more acres of alfalfa and soybeans than corn." Sorry, wrong again.

From the National Agricultural Census for Winneshiek County Iowa (all data for production year 2002) -

Corn - 118,871 acres
Soy - 69,199 acres
Hay - 47,840 acres

"Hay" listings in the Census do not differentiate between alfalfa and other hay types, but we can probablly assume that much of the total is indeed alfalfa.

However, add 69,199 + 47,840 = 117,039 - still about 1,800 acres short of even equaling corn production, let along supporting your statement.

http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census02/volume1/ia/st19_2_023_023.pdf

Oh, and some information about the nitrifaction process:

The nitrifying bacteria have some important environmental consequences, because they are so common that most of the ammonium in oxygenated soil or natural waters is readily converted to nitrate. Most plants and microorganisms can take up either nitrate or ammonium (arrows marked "1" in the diagram). However, process of nitrification has some undesirable consequences. The ammonium ion (NH4+) has a positive charge and so is readily adsorbed onto the negatively charged clay colloids and soil organic matter, preventing it from being washed out of the soil by rainfall. In contrast, the negatively charged nitrate ion is not held on soil particles and so can be washed down the soil profile - the process termed leaching (arrow marked 7 in the diagram). In this way, valuable nitrogen can be lost from the soil, reducing the soil fertility. The nitrates can then accumulate in groundwater, and ultimately in drinking water. There are strict regulations governing the amount of nitrate that can be present in drinking water, because nitrates can be reduced to highly reactive nitrites by microorganisms in the anaerobic conditions of the gut. Nitrites are absorbed from the gut and bind to haemoglobin, reducing its oxygen-carrying capacity. In young babies this can lead to respiratory distress - the condition known as "blue baby syndrome". Nitrite in the gut also can react with amino compounds, forming highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.

http://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/microbes/nitrogen.htm

Do a litle homework next time if you want to be taken seriously around here.

[Name removed]

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[hatrack]

20. So, in other words, you don't have any numbers, so you make them up

You know what gets my nose out of joint? It's not you being caught out on an incorrect assertion and just blowing numbers out of your ass by means of response, amusing though that certainly is.

It's your doctrinaire brand of bullshit that showed up right in your very first post that told me all that I needed to know.

"Maybe just a note, that eventhough the chikenlittles have been screeming that we are all being posioned since the 50s and 60s, A Silent Spring, comes to mind. life spans increase every year and cancer rates are down for everything except skin cancer (sun worshipers) and lung cancer (smokers). The doom that has been predicted for more that 50 years has yet to materialize. Not one single prediction of envormental disaster has ever happened."

Yessire Bob, we're nothing but a bunch of "chickenlittles". Ozone depletion is not taking place, in spite of Sherwood Rowlands and Mario Molina, who discovered the process over Antarctica, winning the Nobel Prize for their scientific work.

The Aral Sea has, contrary to popular press fearmongering, not dried up. Come on in, the fishing's fine and healthy, smiling Turkmens are pulling in nets heavy with fish. Likewise, the Colorado Delta is a thriving wonderland of fish, game and wildlife.

The Larsen A and B Ice Shelves did not collapse and the Arctic basin sea ice has not thinned by 40% in thirty years. Tropical glaciers in South America, Africa and Asia, along with alpine glaciers in the Himalayas, the Karakorum, the Rockies and Cascades, the Alps, the Dolomites and the Pyrenees are not shrinking at rates between 500 and 2,000% their rates before 1990 - no, in fact they're expanding! Furthermore, there's no such thing as permafrost melting in Alaska - it's just another liberal media myth.

The North Atlantic and North Sea cod fisheries are thriving (much like those of the Aral Sea) and there's enough fish there for limitless expansion of harvests for ever and ever and ever. In fact, fisheries all over the world are healthier than ever - just look at the enormous bluefins the Japanese are pulling in - 2,000 and 2,500 pounds. See how the price of prime toro is plunging in Tokyo?

Gee, how could we all be so WRONG! Thanks, haverhill, for showing us all to be irrational "chickenlittles", as proven irrefutably by your superbly informed arguments. You'll have to excuse me, but I'm on my way to buy a Hummer H2.

[haverhill]

21. Making up numbers?

Just the facts is all

You used three numbers, corn, soybeans, and alfalfa. You either dont know or chose to ignore small grains that is used as a cover crop for alfalfa. Pretty sure also that Winneshiek county is maxed out on CRP acres, as in 25% of cropable acres

But it really is hard to dispute that cancer is going down and life expectancy is going up regardless of all the other chaff that has been spewed to confuse

[hatrack]

22. Goodbye, Haverhill

I don't have any more time for you, or your lousy arguments, or your "greenie-weenie Chicken Little" bullshit.

Have a short, sad life.

[haverhill]

8. I knew I forgot somthing

The term fecal coliform is correct. But all coliform is not fecal colifom. Most media reports will put the two words together reguardless of factual evidence. Coliform bacteria is a natural occuring bacteria in the soil in absence of any fecal materials.

If a health department finds coliform present in a test, the first thing they do is check out the integrity of the water system to make sure that there are no leaks that allow organic material into whe water system. Then see if there are other problems that may be coming into play

http://www.healthyvermonters.info/hs/epi/idepi/coliform/coliform.shtml#one

just a link that goes into much greater detail

[havocmom]

10. My husband works in an office where one of the jobs is water monitoring

and the coliform in our water IS fecal coliform. There is no media in our area to misinform on this one. It is fact. And it is fact that it is increasing in most areas.

[haverhill]

12. I dont know your

personal water source. If you are on a private well and your entire coliform bacteria count is fecal, you may want to call your public health office and have them explain the tests and what the results mean. I would most likley think that your private well system is in a state of disrepair and needs maintence. What is happining is that the plumbing that brings your private well water into your home is leaking, allowing soil to seep into the pipe(s), The soil is contaminated with fecal matter, from either a livestock operation, or your own septic system is also in need of care. Hope thats a help

[havocmom]

16. Municiple water well in a town of 340 people

There is NO public health office. My town is not really unique. Water is not safer. Water is getting more scarce and as a population nationwide, we are having to go further to get it to populations. When you have water systems adding more cleansing agents and more wells closed due to ground contamination, there is a problem all across the nation/world.

And huge agri-business uses methods which are cost efficent, not necessarily resource conserving. Fertilizers and wastes from huge animal feed lots are all getting into ground water, streams, rivers, therefore the ocean too. Water cannot be safer until we implement ways of dealing with wastes safely.

Water cannot be safer when there are more and more people just flushing shit downstream to become somebody else's problem. Cities are strapped for cash and treatment plants are not keeping up with increased load.

My tiny town has water problems. My former home, Tucson has water problems. The place I was raised, the California coastal area, has water problems. My borther who has a private well in a low population area in western MT has water problems.

The oceans are not doing well. Seems they are having water problems too.

[havocmom]

9. Silent Spring scenrio averted due to ban on DDT

And water is not safer in all places. When I moved to Tucson in 83, it had pretty safe water and was one of the few cities which tested for viruses. Now: no virus testing and Colorado River water in the system. the frist attempt at sending highly treated (due to contaminates) Co River water through some Tucson neighborhoods resulted in some sick people and a lot of homes whith plumbing which simply disentregrated because of the reaction of older plumbing to the caustic chemicals they had to add to the water to meet standards for safety. That is not safer water.

Old pipes from an inrastrusture in sad need of attention in most places means there are leaks that lead to contamination between treatment centers and your faucet. That is not safer water.

Huge livestock feedlots = raw sewage to dispose of. Rain run off in areas with this causes surface water AND grousn water to become contaminated with fecal matter. That is not safer water.

Large corporate farms use methods which are most cost effective, not which do the best job of soil conservation and keeping contaminates our of ground water. Relaxing regulations on contaminates from mining activity results in more contaminates reaching ground and surface water.

There was a time when we were making progress on safe water. But with the corporate take over of government resulting in lowering standards and/or actual inspection, water is not safer.

[haverhill]

14. DDT

This red herring really needs to be put out with this mornings coffee grounds

Check with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Last nesting pair of Bald Eagles registared was 1917, DDT invented in the 1930's and did not come into much us until after WWII and the green revolution. Number of humans killed or desease ridden until it was banned? 0. Number of humans that die every year since DDT was banned? Look a deaths due to malaria world wide.

[havocmom]

17. I live where the eagles are plentiful again. I know, thru first hand

observations that eagles and pelicans were just about extinct in areas where their numbers increased dramatically after the DDT ban.

Red herring my ass. You are the one who remarked that predictions of environmental disasters failed to manifest. I just happen to have first hand evidence that some disasters did not manifest because of efforts made to change practices which were causing environmental problems. Not a red herring. It is all connected and you thru it into the arguement with your comments poo-poohing environmental warnings.

Care for a glass of water? We can fetch some from any one of thousands of sources which are no longer safe.

[haverhill]

19. Read my whole post

Eagles were in trouble in the late 1800's DDT not widely used until the 1950's. So, see, DDT was not the problem. Life spans in the USA are rising inspite of your opinion on the saftey to the water supply.

I happen to feel that all people of the world have value, and not allowing poor countries to us DDT to kill mosquitoes that carry malaria and kill in excess of 1 million peple a year borders on criminal.

I do drink from any municiple water source I encounter and any private well unless the owner tells me different

[NickB79]

23. Many countries still use DDT

The main reason it is declining in use isn't from pressure from environmental agencies, but from the fact that mosquitos are developing a strong resistance to it. Try to point the blame all you want at environmentalists, but DDT was already losing its effectiveness here in the US by the time it was banned. Even without "Silent Spring" drawing attention to it, it would have become obsolete on its own through the wonderful act of natural selection.

[NickB79]

24. You prove nothing

Eagle populations were in decline before DDT was invented, that is not in debate. Their initial cause of decline, however, was from habitat destruction. The introduction of DDT simply exerberated the situation and pushed them faster towards possible extinction. Take a look at other bird population numbers at the time, such as many seabirds and upland game birds. Their numbers, strong in the first half of the century, began to plummet as DDT was introduced.

[Name removed]

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[NickB79]

26. Their populations grew in the 1950's and 1960's, huh?

The Fish and Wildlife Service seems to disagree with you there:

"Prior to 1940, the eagle population began to decrease. This decrease was directly related to the decline in numbers of prey species, as well as direct killing and loss of habitat. In 1940, the Bald Eagle Protection Act was passed. This law made it illegal to kill, harm, harass, or possess bald eagles, alive or dead, including eggs, feathers and nests. As a result of the passing of this law, the bald eagle began to partially recover. However, this was just the beginning of what this remarkable creature would have to endure that brought it to the brink of extinction. Subsequent to World War II, the use of dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) to control mosquitos became very widespread along coastal and wetland areas. This had a drastic effect on the bald eagle, and as a result of foraging on contaminated food, the species' population plummeted. It was determined in the later 1960's and early 1970's, that DDE, the principal breakdown product of DDT, built up in the fatty tissues of adult females. This prevented the calcium release necessary to produce strong egg shells, and consequently, caused reproductive failure. In response to the decline, the Secretary of the Interior, on March 11, 1967, listed those populations of the bald eagle south of the 40th parallel as endangered under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. However, the decline continued until DDT was banned from use in the United States on December 31, 1972."

http://endangered.fws.gov/i/b/msab0h.html

They stabilized before DDT was introduced, but began falling again afterwards. Coincidence?

[theoceansnerves]

27. hahaha

all right! another DDT apologist! at least now we know what your true intentions are.

[LittleApple81]

11. You can drink it... but maybe you shouldn't? And should we not expect

that water quality for EVERYBODY is better than 50 or 80 years ago? I thought one of the things you expect for progress in humanity is healthy water, not for a few, but for everybody.

[Name removed]

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