Fecal Wastes from Land Bring Infection to Marine Waters

[archman]

You may be confusing Total coliform content with Fecal/E. coli results. In terms of drinking water analyses, sample results that are TC+ are not considered to be an immediate health hazard. The Total coliform test is simply an indicator that if a water source can support the growth of these ubiquitous organisms, then it may also support pathogenic organisms.

Conversely, samples that are Fecal/E. coli positive are deemed to have been in direct contact with mammalian waste products.

You're probably right there. I haven't had a refresher on the specific microbiological lingo since the late '90's. My apologies.

Boogie, the Walkerton incident is dated year 2000, so my training predates it. Funny... it still should have crossed my desk or been referred to me. I guess a lot of what happens in Canada never makes it to Texas. :11ztongue

From the news report I hastily pulled up, excess rainfall overloaded the town's treatment capability. The system was maintaining minimum (or below minimum) secondary treatment to begin with, and the agricultural runoff completely overwhelmed it. Is that an accurate assessment?

 

[Boogie711]

More or less. There were a number of things which should have or could have happened to prevent the deaths, but they didn't - the principal omission being any chlorination of the municipal water supply. Chlorine saves lives - and this town just wasn't using any. The town's water manager admitted faking the testing results dating back years in the belief that "the water was good." Sad and tragic all at once.

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

There was discussion for use of bio-filtering in the Corpus area a few years ago, but apparently it's died off - now if only those that opposed it from lack of understanding could be nurtured by their own sewage and have understanding bloom from it . . .

The way I remeber it the water would have primary treatment prior to routing through the wetlands / salt marshes. Seemed to have good scientific merit. This included waters from industrial facilities - cooling tower blowdown has minerals and phosphates conducive to plant growth since chromates were banned many years ago now. Worked at a refinery where we irrigated 500+ acres owned by the company with primary treated wastewater and grew saltgrass hay and this was VERY popular with the ranchers especially in the droughts of the 1990's. No effluent wastewater went to any existing water body.

Don't remember any real pig farm in the Corpus area - everything with any number of head to it was pretty much cattle with the exception of the Belk poultry farm in Petronilla.

I seem to remember warning signs at the Comal Springs years ago when doing my AOW too.

 

[fgray1]

Don"t Drink The Water !!!
The Fish ***** In It

 

[archman]

Don"t Drink The Water !!!
The Fish ***** In It

Not just the fishes... ever heard of an "aquapoop"? I was recently introduced to this practice by dive pro's that spend much time aboard small liveboards. Apparently its quite the thing. Wouldn't try it in a drysuit, however.

 

[fgray1]

YUK !!!!!!!
What happens if it squishy.
Guess it's good to attrack the fish:

 

[drdiver1952]

Man, if you've ever been in a school of chub that were pooping, you know about aqua poop.

It's for sure, the aquatic habitat is being degraded despite increased efforts at treating all kind of effluents.

Bottom line:

TOO MANY PEOPLE!!!

Wear the hat, folks, or whatever your preferred method is...

 

[Nomaster]

Oh man, stay away from drainages anywhere near farms like that! Some aren't safe to wade in. There's a pond in central Texas that is fed from runoff via a nearby pig farm. The water in the pond is TRAFFIC LIGHT GREEN. Diving in places like that require full hazard suits.

There was a research proposal years ago in Corpus to attempt tracking fecal coliform bacteria in rivers and bays to their source chicken/pig/cow farm. They were going to try tagging nucleic acid signatures to particular local coliform strains. I don't think that project ever got anywhere... I can imagine the intense lobbying against such an effort.

Not only humans and farm animals, I remember an article years ago in Seattle about the problems with pet poo runoff in the Sound.
I'll see if I can find it and come back.
***I thought the article I read was earlier than this, but here's a November 2002 series: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/sound/
***And here's a factsheet from Baltimore: http://www.stormwatercenter.net/Pollution_Prevention_Factsheets/AnimalWasteCollection.htm
Now that I opened the search, I'm sure there are myriad articles on pet waste problems around urban areas, but it seems that most everything I've read has been about farm waste.

Tom

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

Not just the fishes... ever heard of an "aquapoop"? I was recently introduced to this practice by dive pro's that spend much time aboard small liveboards. Apparently its quite the thing. Wouldn't try it in a drysuit, however.

Is this similar to the 'Warhammer Maneuver' posted elsewhere on this board? That's the only term I've seen used for what I think you're describing.

And I've been doing some other thinking - if I'm not mistaken the Belk poultry farm has closed or at least it was in imminent danger of closing when I last lived in S. Texas - that leaves cattle ranches as the main animal agribusiness, so I'm still a bit confused by the original discussion on this area. I never saw the large animal-per-square-foot populations that would lead me to think natural biodegradation was significantly disrupted.

In Ohio, there are some egg farms that supply a significant portion of the nation's egg supply from each farm - evidently HUGE operations. There was a series of articles about one such farm that was owned by a family who were citiens in Germany and having trouble tracking them down regarding fines, violations, etc. I was glad to only be reading of this in the newspaper rather than experiencing firsthand, as the news accounts depicted biblical-plague proportion fly populations that neighbors had to deal with, as well as issues of runoff contamination to neighbors and non-neighbors further downstream.

The pet poo data is something I hadn't seen before, and I'm wondering about the effects of suggested disposal routes. The trash can / eventual landfill seems good unless the landfill operator is not keeping their business up to code, in which case pet waste is probably the least of the problems such a site is inflicting on its surroundings. Proper liner construction and monitoring in the landfill design should work fine here though. And toilet disposal seems good on the surface, until you see the article about how most of the top 10 water emissions violaters in the Seattle area are sewage treatment plants. The article seems to indicate the government is a lot less effective both complying with emissions regulations and in policing emissions exceedances from municipal entities than industrial entities.

 

[archman]

if I'm not mistaken the Belk poultry farm has closed or at least it was in imminent danger of closing when I last lived in S. Texas - that leaves cattle ranches as the main animal agribusiness, so I'm still a bit confused by the original discussion on this area. I never saw the large animal-per-square-foot populations that would lead me to think natural biodegradation was significantly disrupted.

Here's a list of pig breeders in Texas. Many of them are commercial farm outfits.
http://www.nationalswine.com/industryreference/indrefbreederTX.html

And here's a link that lists a few poultry farms in Texas. I'm sure there's a better list somewhere.
http://www.ifi-us.com/Poultry.asp

You can get info on sheep, ostrich, and other livestock farms from the second link too.

Cattle's still king in Texas, though. Just not Longhorns. The aggies made sure of that.