To Swim or Not to Swim

To Swim or Not to Swim Just a mile from an Ohio beach, a temporarily flooded Cleveland waste-treatment plant was pouring millions of gallons of raw sewage into Lake Erie every hour. Yet in spite of posted warnings, scores of bathers were blithely enjoying the waters. While the sight was enough to make a public health officer wince, it is not uncommon in the U.S. Swimmers everywhere recklessly expose themselves to pollution. Curiously, relatively few of them seem to get sick--or at least report any illness. Have the dangers of bathing in polluted water been exaggerated?

Breeding Grounds. Doctors disagree on the answer. The common technique for measuring pollution is counting the number of coliform, or intestinal bacteria in samples of water. These organisms are easily detected. Although they are usually harmless, they often coexist with more menacing microorganisms and viruses that cannot be discovered without more extensive testing. Hence the count provides a useful index of pollution. Yet levels that are regarded as safe by some public officials are rejected as dangerous by others.

New York City, for example, allows swimming when the coliform count is as high as 2,400 organisms per 100 milliliters, while neighboring Nassau County on Long Island bans bathers when the count reaches only 240 per 100 mls. The Federal Government and the military feel, for their part, that 1,000 per 100 mls. is a safe limit.

The unseen, uncounted but dangerous organisms that sometimes lurk in polluted water include the viruses that may cause conjunctivitis, laryngitis, sinusitis and hepatitis. They can also include the even more threatening bacteria that cause typhoid, cholera and leptospirosis, a sometimes serious infection carried by animal urine into streams, lakes and stagnant water. Indeed, small rural ponds can create a special hazard for swimmers. Without an adequate water flow to wash away debris, they may become breeding grounds for a heavy concentration of pathological organisms.

Do Not Swallow. Given all this menace, why does swimming in polluted water not cause more widespread illness? Although doctors are just beginning to study the problem thoroughly, many believe that bathers are harmed only if they swallow the organisms. An English physician has argued that a swimmer, short of actually swallowing fecal matter, runs almost no risk of infection. Says Dr. Siegried Centerwall, head of California's San Bernardino County health department: "When officials say water is unsafe for swimming, they really mean it is unsafe for drinking."

Even swallowing polluted water very rarely results in a serious disease. This month, however, a study in the Archives of Environmental Health reports that the 16 Virginians who died over the past 34 years of amoebic meningoencephalitis, an infection of the brain and spinal cord, had all apparently caught the disease in three fresh-water lakes near Richmond.

A few diseases may result from mere skin contact with infected water; the most serious of these is schistosomiasis, an infestation of snail-borne parasites usually contracted in warm fresh waters, but never in the U.S. Related but much less virulent parasites, which are also found in cold water in many places including both the East and West coasts of the U.S., are the culprits involved in producing the rashes called "swimmer's itch."

Despite the relatively low risk of swimmers becoming seriously or fatally ill as the result of immersion in polluted water, doctors warn that they should not be lulled into a false sense of security. Any polluted water is potentially a source of danger. In fact, some people are tempted to blame every disease on water. Asked last fortnight by U.S. Public Health Service Officer Dr. Fred Febvier where he had picked up gonorrhea, a teen-age Cleveland youth replied without hesitation: "Lake Erie."

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