CEGLHH Researcher featured on Great Lakes Radio Consortium

[Sonia Joseph <Sonia.Joseph@noaa.gov>]

Dr. Richard Whitman, a researcher with the NOAA Center of Excellence for 
Great Lakes and Human Health, was featured on Monday's Great Lakes Radio 
Consortium series "Ten Threats to the Great Lakes." The Dec. 12 story 
discussed Bacteria in the Beaches. Below is the story: 
http://www.glrc.org/transcript.php3?story_id=2866

*TEN THREATS: BACTERIA HITS THE BEACHES*
Shawn Allee
December 12, 2005

We’re continuing our series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Our field 
guide through the series is Lester Graham. He says anyone who visits 
Great Lakes beach is familiar with one of the Ten Threats.

If you swim or play on the beaches around the Great Lakes, you've 
probably heard about 'beach closings.' At best, the situation is an 
inconvenience. At worst, it's a serious health risk for some people. 
That's because the beaches are closed due to dangerous levels of 
bacteria in the water. Beach closures are not all that new, but Shawn 
Allee reports… the science behind them could change dramatically in the 
next few years:

(Sound of dog and beach)

During the summer, dogs and their owners usually play together in the 
water along this Lake Michigan beach, but today, several dog owners 
scowl from the sand while their dogs splash around.

"It's e coli day … it's a hardship."

This beachgoer's upset, and like she said, e coli's to blame.

Park officials tested the water the previous day and found high levels 
of the bacterium. Missing a little fun on the beach doesn't sound like a 
big deal, but there's more at stake than recreation.

Cameron Davis is with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, a regional 
advocacy group.

"Beaches are most peoples biggest, tightest connection to the Great 
Lakes, so when beaches close, they really impact our quality of life in 
the region."

And ultimately, health is at stake too. For a long time, scientists 
tested beach water for e coli because it's associated with human feces. 
That is, if e coli's in the water, there's a good chance sewage is there 
too, and sewage can carry dangerous organisms - stuff that can cause 
hepatitis, gastric diseases, and rashes.

Sewage can get into the Great Lakes after heavy rains. That's because 
some sewers and drains can't keep up with the flow, and waste heads to 
the lakes.

For a long time, scientists thought human feces was the only source of e 
coli in Great Lakes water, but a puzzling phenomenon has them looking 
for other causes, too. Experts say cities have been dumping less sewage 
into the Great Lakes in recent years, but we're seeing more e coli and 
more beach closings.

Paul Bertram is a scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency. He says, we're closing more beaches because we're testing them 
more often.

"But I don't think it's because the Great Lakes are getting more 
polluted, and more filled with pathogens, I think we're just looking for 
it more."

If we're finding more e coli because we're testing more often, we still 
have a problem. We still need to know where the e coli's coming from. 
Bertram says there might be another culprit besides sewage.

"There is some evidence that it may in fact be coming from birds, flocks 
of seagulls, things like that."

But some researchers doubt sewage and bird droppings can account for 
high e coli levels.

(Sound of research team)

A few researchers are sorting vials of water in a lab at the Lake 
Michigan Ecological Research Station in Indiana.

Richard Whitman leads this research team. He says, in the past, 
scientists could predict beach closings by looking out for certain 
events. For example, they would take note of sewer overflows after heavy 
rains. Whitman says researchers can't rely on those triggers anymore.

"A large number, maybe even a majority of closures remain unexplained. 
Today, we have closures and there's no rainfall, may not even be gulls, 
and we don't know why the bacteria levels are high."

Whitman has a hunch that e coli can grow in the wild, and doesn't always 
need human feces to thrive.

"This is my theory. E coli was here before we were. It has an ecology of 
its own that we need understand and recognize."

The idea's pretty controversial. It runs against the prevailing theory 
that e coli only grows in waste from warm-blooded animals, such as human 
beings and gulls, but the idea's also a kind of political bombshell.

If he's right, it would mean our tests for e coli aren't very accurate – 
they don't tell us whether there's sewage around. After all, if e coli 
is nearly everywhere, how can we assume it's a sign of sewage?

"As a pollution indicator, you don't want it to multiply. If it's got an 
ecology of its own, multiplying on its own, doing its own thing, then 
it's not a very good indicator."

Whitman wants us to try other kinds of tests to find sewage. One idea is 
to look for caffeine in the water. Caffeine's definitely in sewage but 
it's not found naturally in the Great Lakes, but until we change our 
water tests, Whitman will continue his work. He says we still need to 
know how much e coli's in nature and how much is there because of us.

Environmentalists want the government to keep a close watch on the new 
science. They say we can't let questions about the relationship between 
e coli and sewage stop our effort to keep sewage and other waste out of 
the Great Lakes.

For the GLRC, I'm Shawn Allee.

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Sonia Joseph
Michigan Sea Grant Outreach Coordinator
Center of Excellence for Great Lakes and Human Health (CEGLHH)
NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
(734) 741-2283

http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/Centers/HumanHealth/intro.html

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