RE: BEACHNET==> ER visits for Diarrheal Illness Increased After Release of Undertreated Sewage

[CKnauf@monroecounty.gov]

When I lived in the Binghamton, New York area on the Susquehanna River,
contact and fish consumption advisories were routinely issued for people in
the Endicott area downstream of the Johnson City WWTP after malfunctions
resulting in untreated discharges, but these were not generally extended as
far downstream as Owego, NY, approximately 20 miles downstream.  At the
time, Dr Bruce McDuffy of Mercury in Tunafish fame was on the faculty of
SUNY at Binghamton, and he indicted that based on discharge and flow
characteristics, putrescence of the wastes occurred before the discharges
would reach Owego, and I would guess UV disinfection from sunlight, and
possibly chlorination of the discharge stream, was taking care of the
bacterial populations.  This was 30+ years ago, and there has to better
science around now, but I think it has to be a combination of flow
characteristics, turbidity of the receiving stream, which would mask UV
effects, magnitude and duration of the discharge, possibly the
characteristics of the channel, and would vary as those parameters varied.
For our beach model, discharge characteristics of the Genesee River were
studied, and a time of travel nomogram was developed, and we apply watch
periods or closures depending on flow magnitudes during the period when the
river plume is predicted to reach Lake Ontario, as well as instituting
monitoring in the river to check E. Coli populations.

Charles L. Knauf
Environmental Health Project Analyst
Monroe County Health Department
111 Westfall Road Room 976
Rochester, NY 14692
cknauf@monroecounty.gov
(585) 753-5440
fax (585) 753-5098


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