Tag Archives: Water

Plan to reduce pig pollution by potty training

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Environmental authorities in Taiwan say they are planning to promote potty training for pigs to help curb water and waste pollution.

The Environmental Protection Administration made the pledge following the success of a pig farm in southern Taiwan, where the breeder started to potty-train his 10,000 pigs in late 2009, it said.

To keep his animals from defecating in nearby rivers, the breeder has established special "toilets" smeared with faeces and urine to attract the pigs, it said.

This reduced the amount of waste water by up to 80 per cent. As well as making the farm cleaner and less smelly, it also helped reduce illness among the pigs and boosted their fertility by 20 per cent, it added.

Taiwan has about six million pigs, most of them raised on farms in the centre and the south of the island.

Over 11,000 sick in Sweden cryptosporidium outbreak; source found

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Investigators in Ostersund, Sweden, say they traced a cryptosporidium outbreak that has sickened more than 11,000 residents to a multifamily dwelling in the city’s Odensala neighborhood

Ostersund environmental head Jari Hiltula told Swedish news agency TT,

"We’ve found high levels of the parasite in the connection to this source. We’ve handed over the information to the police who are responsible for the investigation. A property owner will also be contacted."

The parasite may have entered the city’s water supply through a sewage line mistakenly connected to a rainwater drainage system, the report said.

"It looks like the sewage pipe wasn’t connected properly," said Andrew Sorensson, an environmental crimes investigator with the Ostersund police.

Ontario restaurant sickened 5 in 2007; conviction still stands in 2010

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In May, 2007, five patrons of the Yaman Restaurant in St. Catherines, Ontario (that’s by Niagara Falls) got sick with E. coli.

The problems started when owners Mahmoud Asaad and Senan Daoud continued to run their business on May 19, 2007, despite the fact water to the restaurant was cut off due to a water-main break. The restaurant was shut down by the region that month, but reopened with a clean bill of health in August that year.

The two were convicted in 2009 on five counts each of selling food unfit for human consumption, and were fined $7,500 each.

The St. Catharines Standard reports that Judge Ann Watson said today in a written decision the 2009 convictions by another judge would stand in relation to four of five patrons.

5,700 sick as Swedish city traces source of cryptosporidium in water supply

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The water system in Östersund, in northern Sweden, has been found to contain an area with high levels of cryptosporidium which has left thousands of people ill and the city’s water undrinkable.

Östersund municipality is now considering how the area can be sealed off so that the parasite does not continue to reach the water treatment plant, it was revealed at the press conference (photo from The Local).

Those responsible at the municipality would not reveal if the area was found in water or on land.

The details of the tests were passed on to police and prosecutors this morning.

Nearly one in ten residents of Östersund has now been hit by a stomach bug caused by the parasite in the municipal water supply.

Two operating rooms at Östersund Hospital are today closed due to the rampaging stomache flu.

The infection has hit hospital staff – with almost 200 workers at home from work on Thursday, according to Sveriges Television (SVT). Hospital management expects an increasing number of sick staff over the next few days.

The hospital has 3000 liters of clean water driven in every day in order to secure water supplies.

Crypto crime probe in Sweden

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Police said today a criminal investigation is under way in Sweden to determine how an intestinal parasite ended up in the town of Ostersund’s municipal water supply, sickening more than 2,000 residents.

Environmental prosecutor Christer B. Jarlas said release of the parasite cryptosporidium may have been the result of criminal negligence, the Swedish news agency TT reported Tuesday.

He said he has reason to believe that the contamination was due to carelessness by one or several individuals who didn’t have control of their operations.

Sweden’s National Center for Infectious Disease Control told TT the 50,000 residents of Ostersund will have to boil their water for several weeks.
 

Cryptosporidium outbreak sickens thousands in Sweden

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UPI reports that cryptosporidium in the water supply has sickened more than 2,000 people in the city of Ostersund, in northern Sweden.

The source of the contamination is unknown.

It is feared 3,000 to 9,000 people may be infected.

A warning to boil tap water was issued Friday and renewed Monday.

Several members of Sweden’s biathlon team, training in Ostersund for an international competition in the city, have come down with symptoms.
 

South Carolina Splash Pad reopens after crypto case with new rules, guidelines

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Wandering around Brisbane on a Saturday afternoon we came upon the splash park and beach at Southbank, close to downtown.

Sorenne did some impromptu playing, and I noticed at least three little kids running around naked. The lifeguard soon happened along and told the parents to at least put a diaper on the toddlers. I asked the lifeguard, was that to prevent little ones pooping in the splash park and he said, he didn’t know, it was just policy.

It’s a good policy.

WIS reports the Splash Pad at Drew Wellness Center is back open after being closed for nearly a month when a child was found sick with a case of the parasite cryptosporidium.

Since then, the city has revamped its procedures for keeping track of how the pad is maintained.

Ray Borders-Gray with the Drew Wellness Center, said,

"After what happened, we took a good hard look how we were doing business. The standard Operating Procedures for the Splash Pad is now written down, all staff have taken a look at it, the standards are now here on site, so if anyone has any questions about what should happen, when it should happen. …

"We are asking people to wear the proper swim attire. We want to make sure the little ones are in the diaper swim pants and we ask that people do not bring their pets to the Splash Pad."
 

Always the bugs: Alexander the Great died from dirty water

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Styx was a terrible band that I actually went to see in Toronto in 1979.

South Park has an episode where Cartman has to sing the entire Styx song, Come Sail Away, whenever he starts the song.

Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) was killed by a deadly bacterium found in the River Styx, rather than by a fever brought on by an all-night drinking binge in ancient Babylon, scientists believe.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that researchers in the US.. have found a striking correlation between the symptoms he suffered before his death in 323BC, and the effects of the highly toxic bacterium.

Alexander fell ill during a party at the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon, in modern Iraq. He complained of a ”sudden, sword-stabbing agony in the liver” and had to be taken to bed where, over the next 12 days, he developed a high fever and excruciating pains in his joints.

His condition worsened, he fell into a coma, and is believed to have died on June 10 or 11, 323BC – just shy of his 33rd birthday. Historians have speculated that his death was brought about by the heavy drinking, typhoid, malaria, acute pancreatitis, West Nile fever or poisoning.

But experts who have reviewed the circumstances of his death believe instead that he may have been killed by calicheamicin, a dangerous compound produced by bacteria.

Antoinette Hayes, co-author of the Stanford University research paper and a toxicologist at Pfizer Research in the US., said,

”It is extremely toxic. It is a metabolite – one of hundreds produced by soil bacteria. It grows on limestone, and there’s a lot of limestone in Greece.”
 

Utah: Campylobacter outbreak in Saratoga Springs probably caused by cross-connecting water lines

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I’m not familiar with the practice, but apparently when crews shut off the city’s irrigation lines in the fall in Saratoga Springs, Utah, some residents tap into culinary pipes, getting water for outdoor use.

Deseret News reports that the city imposed the fine for cross-connecting culinary and irrigation lines after a Campylobacter outbreak sickened dozens of residents earlier this summer. Cross-connecting can contaminate culinary water and may have caused the outbreak.

Mayor Mia Love said anyone caught cross-connecting with a previous warning will be fined $10,000, adding, "It certainly sends a message saying we’re very serious about keeping the water clean. We’re not taking it lightly."
 

With only 300 sick, campylobacter in water outbreak receding

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The Utah County Department of Health (that’s in the U.S.) reports the Campylobacter outbreak that left more than 300 people in Saratoga Springs ill and triggered a boil order appears to be receding.

Joy Holbrook, a nurse epidemiologist with the department, said,

"We’re thinking that the outbreak is decreasing out there. It has been several days since we’ve had any new cases from Saratoga Springs."

Health department officials still are looking for the source of the contamination, which is responsible for 21 confirmed cases of Campylobacter and more than 300 probable cases. Holbrook said the small trace of organisms required to cause sickness and infection can be difficult to detect.