Fecal Wastes from Land Bring Infection to Marine Waters

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archman

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This popped into my email system, just as I was having lunch. Yummy.
“Attention to worldwide pollution of the coastal marine environment has focused primarily on toxic algal blooms and pathogenic bacteria that multiply in nutrient-rich waters. However, massive but unseen amounts of feces from humans, their pets, and their domesticated animals are discharged, dumped, or carried in runoff, bringing encysted zoonotic protozoan parasites to estuaries and coastal waters. Here, they contaminate bathing beaches, are filtered and concentrated by shellfish eaten by humans and marine mammals, and infect a wide range of marine animal hosts, resulting in morbidity and mortality to some populations.” So argues a recent review in the journal Trends in Parasitology.

The review, by Ronald Fayer of the United States Department of Agriculture and colleagues, observes laconically that, although “from space, the Earth appears to be covered in large part by water and is seen as a bright blue sphere, closer inspection would reveal human and animal feces spread over much of the planet.” Between them, the authors calculate, the world’s humans and livestock produce at least 4 billion metric tons of manure each year, with just one gram of feces capable of containing up to 10,000,000 cysts of the parasite Giardia.
The authors go on to observe that encysted protozoans originating in human and animal feces “are transported in runoff from agricultural, suburban and urban land surfaces, wastewater discharges and other sources to rivers and streams, which carry contaminated sediments to estuaries and eventually to coastal waters.” Here, they may survive up to twelve weeks before entering the food web, generally through intake by shellfish, by which route they may infect human consumers. The pathogens may also remain in the ocean environment and infect marine mammals, either through direct consumption of shellfish in the case of species such as sea otters, or via pathways that remain obscure, as with bottlenose dolphins.
The presence of toxoplasmosis in sea otters is of particular concern. The disease has been implicated in increased mortalities of the species in California; the paper notes that the parasite Toxoplasma gondii “has been isolated from brains or hearts of 22.3% of 67 and 32% of 75 California sea otters.”

The authors conclude: “Hopefully, more molecular data will become available from parasites isolated from marine mammals and will be compared with data from terrestrial animals. Such data will clarify our understanding of the complex relationships among hosts, and will help to identify the routes and mechanisms of land to sea transmission. Nevertheless, practices of wastewater disposal, drinking water purification, runoff control and farm manure management must improve. Otherwise, as human and animal populations grow, so will the negative impact of fecal contamination on public health and ultimately on marine life

Source: Fayer, R., et al. 2004. Zoonotic protozoa: from land to sea. Trends in Parasitology 20(11): 531-536.
This ain't particularly new, but it's still gross! Just one more reason to check your local water quality reports before diving!
 
Hey Archman, that's interesting. A couple years ago i did some commercial dive work with a research firm. They were studying sediment oxygen demand in Lake Waco. There have been lots of concern about dairy farm runoff. Waco water tastes rather bad anyway just to further give one an uneasy feeling. Ahhh, I remember two weeks of diving glorious Lake Waco!
 
freediver:
Hey Archman, that's interesting. A couple years ago i did some commercial dive work with a research firm. They were studying sediment oxygen demand in Lake Waco. There have been lots of concern about dairy farm runoff. Waco water tastes rather bad anyway just to further give one an uneasy feeling. Ahhh, I remember two weeks of diving glorious Lake Waco!

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.
 
archman:
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 that project ever got anywhere... I can imagine the intense lobbying against such an effort.

Yea, i bet the chicken farmers cried fowl, oh jeez that slipped out. Ha funny you mention, Lake Waco does have a pretty green tint to it. Most everyone I know in Waco uses bottled water.
Side question: do you know anything about the bacterial concern earlier this year in Galveston?
 
In Japan, there are some large mud flats on the shore of the ocean that are used to filter and decontaminate large amounts of human waste. Probably not practical for use here in the States though.

I guess the biggest problem is the wide scattering of fecal material (yuck). If farms could concentrate all this matter, maybe it could be biologically filtered. But how would they do that?
 
freediver:
Side question: do you know anything about the bacterial concern earlier this year in Galveston?
No, but stuff like that happens all the time in heavily populated areas. If such areas possess public beaches or fishing zones, they face greater public and government scrutiny and get tested more often.

Usually "bacterial concerns" refer to high fecal coliform counts. The vast bulk of these outbreaks in recent years can be attributed to manmade activity, though natural blooms do occur.

David, bio-filtering of POO can (and is!) accomplished via combinations of:
1. Massive water dilutions
2. Soil drainages (common to septic-type systems)
3. Wetlands Sequestering

With most biofilter-type operations, however, you'll need large swathes of land to do the job. Where such land is in short supply, we usually turn to the much more expensive chemical treatment options. In sewage treatment lingo, we call that secondary treatment. Biofiltering is tertiary treatment.

The United States uses at LEAST secondary treatment in the majority of its municipal water treatments. A great many also use tertiary treatment. The water coming out is pretty clean for either option. Problems arise from non-point runoff sources, and overflow from storm drains.

A fecal coliform incidentally is NOT actually indicative of a bacterium from animal waste. The term denotes easily cultured, common bacteria that tend to co-habitate with the true "poo-bacteria". So a high fecal coliform count in a beach MAY not mean that your waters are saturated in poo, it just points strong suspicions towards it. More elaborate tests are conducted to check stuff like that.
 
archman:
No, but stuff like that happens all the time in heavily populated areas. If such areas possess public beaches or fishing zones, they face greater public and government scrutiny and get tested more often.

Usually "bacterial concerns" refer to high fecal coliform counts. The vast bulk of these outbreaks in recent years can be attributed to manmade activity, though natural blooms do occur.

David, bio-filtering of POO can (and is!) accomplished via combinations of:
1. Massive water dilutions
2. Soil drainages (common to septic-type systems)
3. Wetlands Sequestering

With most biofilter-type operations, however, you'll need large swathes of land to do the job. Where such land is in short supply, we usually turn to the much more expensive chemical treatment options. In sewage treatment lingo, we call that secondary treatment. Biofiltering is tertiary treatment.

WOW Archman, either you have a "crappy" job and you really know your ****, uhhh POO, or you slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
 
Arch - as you know I do environmental risk & crisis communications. Well, I was there first hand when 2,000 people fell ill and seven people died after drinking water contaminated by manure runoff in the town of Walkerton, Ontario. Do a google search on "Walkerton water disaster" if you're unfamiliar.

To this day, the sound of a helicopter makes me cringe... this tiny town had air ambulances coming and going 24 hours a day for 3 days straight to rush people to larger urban hospitals for dialysis treatment. It was horrific... reports came back piecemeal - 'the librarian has died....' or 'the police constable's 1 year old daughter just died.' Just absolutely horrible to go through... because a municipal water treatment manager wasn't doing his job.

You will never be able to eliminate agricultural run off. The farm in this particular incident was exceeding standards set in place for agricultural operations... the farmer was an advocate of environmental stewardship practices, he had invested extra money to ensure safe manure storage, but to be overly blunt - crap happens.

Besides - how can you prevent the fish and beavers from pooping too?

There's nothing wrong with municipal water anywhere in North America - assuming it's properly filtered and treated. That's the key.
 
Our beaches here in Avalon on Santa Catalina Island are routinely closed due to high fecal coliform levels. The city has been looking into the reasons why for several years, but has not found a reason they can easily address. This despite good attempts in the past such as dye tablets in the holding tanks of visiting boats. I can remember my early days here (60's and 70's) when it was common to see brown "sea cucumbers" suspended in the water as one snorkeled or dived.

An early explanation was that it was contamination from birds (pigeons and seagulls). Then it was thought to be from pet poo runoff. They later discovered that several pipes from public restrooms were leaking and there is possible contamination from our sewage pipes.

The testing protocol had recently changed and test samples are now taken from ankle deep water instead of knee deep. This of course means that sampled water contains material from shoreline which often has higher bacterial content.

Fortunately the Dive Park is outside Avalon Bay and not subject to this problem to any real extent. We just have to deal with fish, sea lion and dolphin poopies there!

Dr. Bill
 
archman:
A fecal coliform incidentally is NOT actually indicative of a bacterium from animal waste. The term denotes easily cultured, common bacteria that tend to co-habitate with the true "poo-bacteria".

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.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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