Recreation in Polluted Water Can Be Threat to Human Health

People can get serious diseases from swimming in polluted water, and regulations designed to protect them don’t fully do the job. Above, a beach closure sign at Lake Hiawatha in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0).

TipSheet: Recreation in Polluted Water Can Be Threat to Human Health

By Joseph A. Davis

The old swimming hole — it’s actually a story for environmental journalists.

It’s summer and the Discovery Channel has been eager for Shark Week so it can terrify beachgoing viewers. Starts July 20.

But forget about shark attacks. We have got another story to horrify you: total body contact recreation.

No, not that kind of body contact. We mean swimming, floating, sailboarding, water skiing, tubing, wading, splashing and any other activity that may put your body in contact with polluted water. You could get pretty sick.

 

Why it matters

There are serious diseases people can get from swimming in polluted water. Our nation’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., didn’t seem to care when he took his grandkids swimming in Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek, which is listed as polluted from stormwater.

Kennedy did not get sick, but he set a bad example. Rock Creek is worst when there is street runoff and combined sewer overflows going into it — which isn’t all the time. It’s not meant for swimming or fishing.

We don’t want to scare you, but people can get the brain-eating amoeba from contact with polluted water (97% of cases are fatal). Just saying. Wearing noseclips may help.

More likely and less fatal are intestinal diseases like cholera, which happen when people ingest water contaminated with fecal matter. The vibrio bacteria that include cholera may spike when water temperature rises.

 

There are lots of other

waterborne diseases that spread

via fecal-oral transmission.

Diarrhea is the least of it.

 

There are lots of other waterborne diseases that spread via fecal-oral transmission. Diarrhea is the least of it.

Diseases you can get from water contact include cryptosporidium, some forms of filariasis (not elephantiasis), Legionnaires' disease, swimmers' itch, swimmers' ear, typhoid, giardiasis, salmonella, schistosomiasis, campylobacter … and more. Don’t swallow.

 

The backstory

Fishable, swimmable waters. That’s the stated goal of the 1972 Clean Water Act. The nation certainly hasn’t met the goal yet — but it is still trying.

That’s why companies, municipalities and others must treat their wastewater and get a permit before discharging potential pollutants into U.S. waters.

Under the CWA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets nationwide “criteria.” These state how clean water must be for any particular use (like swimming or total body contact recreation).

The delegated pollution control agency in each state designates specific uses (like swimming) for each lake, stream or estuary within its borders, and regulates discharge permits to reach the criteria for those uses.

That’s the theory, anyway. Real life is more complicated.

 

Some pollution sources,

such as ‘nonpoint’ agricultural

or construction runoff,

are not regulated, at least

not by state permits.

 

Some pollution sources, such as “nonpoint” agricultural or construction runoff, are not regulated, at least not by state permits.

Some pollution types, such as harmful algae, are not always attributable to a specific polluter, even though they are harmful.

Some polluters game the system, and some states cut polluters too much slack. Sometimes politics is involved.

 

Story ideas

• Where do people in your audience area go to swim in the summer? How far away are they willing to go? Go there and talk to people.

• Are there beach closings in your area? Why? It’s often storm discharges from sewer systems. What are the records of your local sewage and stormwater agencies on storm discharges? Have they ever been cited for permit violations?
• What do your state and local health agencies say about the incidence of waterborne illness from local swimming areas? Are the diseases common or uncommon?
• Talk to managers and patrons of local pools, public and private. Talk to the swim coaches. Have they ever had a swimmer out because of waterborne illness?
• Are there ever algal blooms in your local swimming waters? Are they harmful?
• Talk to people whose water recreation mainly involves things other than swimming: sailors, skiers, parasailers, etc.
• Is there a community health center near your swimming area? Go there and talk to the staff about water contact diseases.

 

Reporting resources

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: The EPA sets nationwide criteria for swimmable waters (as discussed above). And check out its “How’s My Waterway?” database.
• State water quality agencies: It may be a Department of Natural Resources or something similar. Names vary. Check a directory here.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: The CDC offers information on the incidence and prevention of many kinds of waterborne diseases.
• U.S. Geological Survey: This federal agency actually surveys and samples water contamination. Or at least it did, before Trump.

[Editor’s Note: For related water quality stories, see our TipSheets on beach closures (and here), as well as on algal blooms (plus a Toolbox on how to track them). Also see this data portal for measuring water quality. And check out this BookShelf review on one of the great urban rivers and its history of swimming.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 26. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.