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Friday, 11/10/2000

TROUBLED WATERS

What you can't see could hurt you



News-Sentinel photo by Steve Linsenmayer
Warning Raw sewage can pour into Cedar Creek when heavy rains overwhelm Auburn's sewage-treatment plant. Sings warn against coming into contact wit

Contaminants lurk in drinking water.

By KEVIN KILBANE of The News-Sentinel

Most people in Fort Wayne used to turn on a faucet and fill a glass without giving it much thought.

Then came a report in 1995 from an environmental organization known as the Environmental Working Group. A study by the group found nine different weedkillers, pesticides or their byproducts in one sample of Fort Wayne's drinking water. The water contained more contaminants than any sample collected in the 27 Midwest cities surveyed.

The findings were a wake-up call for those whose job is to protect our drinking water and its source, the St. Joseph River. Concern about the results led to the formation of the St. Joseph River Watershed Initiative. The independent nonprofit organization works to protect drinking water by reducing pollution in the river.

Farm chemicals are only part of the problem. Two other contaminants also are of constant concern to those who monitor the St. Joseph River and Fort Wayne's drinking water: Disease-causing organisms such as bacteria, and eroded topsoil and clay.

Hidden dangers of atrazine

One day last spring, Three Rivers Filtration Plant chemist Michele Gerke filled a test tube with cloudy river water. She added a drop of magnetic-particle solution. Traces of the weedkiller atrazine in the river water bonded to particles in the solution. Magnets then pulled the particles to the sides of the tubes for analysis.

Commonly sold under brand names such as Atrex and the herbicide mixes Bicep and Harness Extra, atrazine has been one of the cheapest and most effective weedkillers used on cornfields. However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies it as a possible cancer-causing agent. It also is believed to cause cardiovascular and reproductive problems.

The EPA also describes as possible carcinogens four other weedkillers commonly found in Fort Wayne's drinking water -- cyanazine (brand name: Bladex), simazine (brand name: Princep), alachlor (brand names: Lasso and Partner) and metolachlor (brand name Dual; metolachlor also is an ingredient in Bicep). All are used on corn or soybeans.

If Gerke finds a high level of atrazine in the river, she can be fairly sure rain has washed the other chemicals into the river, too.

In one extreme example, atrazine tested at nearly 46 parts per billion -- 15 times the EPA average daily limit for drinking water -- in Tamarack Ditch southeast of Edon, Ohio, after a heavy rain in April 1999. The ditch empties into Bear Creek, a St. Joseph tributary.

That sample, which was collected by the St. Joseph River Watershed Initiative, also contained elevated levels of cyanazine and metolachlor.

On this particular day, however, Gerke measured the river's atrazine level at 0.19 parts per billion, or 0.19 micrograms of atrazine per liter of water, well below the EPA safety limit.

The EPA says adults and children should be safe if they drink no more than an annual daily average of 3 parts per billion of atrazine per liter of water. Three parts per billion is the equivalent of three drops of atrazine in 150,000 gallons of water.

Spikes in contamination such as in Tamarack Ditch test the capabilities of the Three Rivers Filtration Plant. The plant can remove only 30 percent to 65 percent of herbicides and pesticides the river sends it, according to Chet Shastri, plant program manager. How much the plant removes depends on the amount of topsoil and clay that rains have washed into the river, Shastri said.

When the plant's carbon filters are working properly, herbicides and pesticides are removed when they attach themselves to tiny particles of carbon. However, when the river is muddy, tiny bits of soil stick to the carbon and prevent it from doing its job.

Last year, herbicide levels in Fort Wayne's drinking water exceeded the EPA annual average daily limit on 14 days. In 1998, weedkillers exceeded the EPA average maximum on 23 days.

But the annual average daily level of atrazine in Fort Wayne's drinking water measured 1.35 parts per billion last year. That is less than half of the EPA limit.

Shastri said the plant did not issue any warnings on days herbicide levels exceeded EPA standards -- levels peaked at 5 parts per billion one day last spring -- because the levels didn't pose a danger. The EPA's short-term exposure limit for atrazine is 100 parts per billion during a 10-day period for adults and children.



News-Sentinel photo by Steve Linsenmayer
Ohio water Dan McClellan tests water in Tamarack Creek in Ohio.

Although Fort Wayne's drinking water met EPA standards for atrazine, the city's annual average atrazine level is at least 0.5 parts per billion higher than the highest quarterly test results reported to the EPA by Indianapolis, Muncie, Richmond and Kokomo. Those cities also draw drinking water from rivers, reservoirs or lakes.

But meeting the EPA's annual average daily limit may not be enough, said Jane Houlihan, a senior analyst with the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C. The nonprofit watchdog organization analyzes data and publishes reports on water quality, food, health and environmental conservation.

The EPA's atrazine limit exposes children to higher doses because of their smaller body size, Houlihan said. She also questions whether EPA standards adequately consider that drinking water may contain several herbicides.

"People in the Midwest often are exposed to more than one chemical," Houlihan said.

As evidence, she cites her organization's 1995 study, the one that found nine contaminants in one sample of Fort Wayne's tap water. The sample -- which contained more contaminants than See DANGERS, Page 4W (arrow)

any other Midwest city surveyed -- was one of 23 samples collected here from May through July of that year.

Purdue University pesticide expert Fred Whitford is confident the EPA's exposure limits provide adequate protection. EPA sets maximums at levels 100 times safer than an average healthy person needs, said Whitford, the coordinator of pesticide programs for Purdue's Cooperative Extension Service.

But he says scientists don't know whether exposure to low levels of multiple weed and pest killers cause health problems. Research is exploring whether the chemicals affect hormones or cause problems with thinking, reading and hyperactivity.

"Any level of pesticide in the water is unacceptable," Whitford said. "The public gets no benefit from atrazine in the water."

Bacteria in muddy water

In addition to clogging carbon filters at the Three Rivers Filtration Plant and allowing farm chemicals to remain in drinking water, muddy river water can pose another health threat: Disease-causing bacteria and other microorganisms can hide in pores in soil, escaping the filtration plant's chlorination process, according to Shastri, plant program manager.

The EPA estimates bacteria contamination in drinking water causes at least 500,000 illnesses nationally each year.

Two of the most dangerous organisms are giardia and cryptosporidium. Both can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramping, nausea and other flulike symptoms.

Cryptosporidium killed 50 people and sickened 400,000 during a 1993 outbreak in Milwaukee.

Fort Wayne hasn't experienced an outbreak of giardia or cryptosporidium since the filtration plant began testing for the organisms in 1994.

To guard against an outbreak of soil-borne disease, the plant filters out more soil particles than required by the EPA. The current limit for water cloudiness is 0.5 nephelometric turbidity units, or NTU. The filtration plant typically reduces cloudiness to 0.1 NTU or below, Shastri said.

Harmful levels of E. coli

Water-quality officials also worry about high levels of E. coli bacteria in the St. Joseph watershed.

Like giardia and cryptosporidium, E. coli can hide in pores in soil particles and escape chlorination. The bacteria probably pose a greater risk to people who have contact with river water.

In addition to diarrhea and cramping, E. coli can cause complications leading to kidney failure and death in young children and older adults.

During the summer, E. coli concentrations in the St. Joseph and its tributaries consistently surpass levels safe for swimming or full-body contact, said Robert Gillespie, an associate professor of biology at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. Gillespie has been analyzing St. Joseph River water-quality data for the St. Joseph River Watershed Initiative.

Water sampling was done from 1996 to 1998 at 19 sites throughout the St. Joseph watershed. Only two sites fell below the E. coli exposure limit of 125 bacteria colonies per 100 milliliters of water. At other sites, E. coli levels ranged from two to more than 10 times the limit safe for body contact.

"That is one of the worst ones (problems), and one we have the least control over," said Jonathan Bickel, the initiative's former public outreach coordinator.

Sewage treatment plants in 20 communities in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan discharge directly into the St. Joseph or its tributaries. Another town, Blakeslee, Ohio, pipes liquid wastewater from residents' septic systems into Bear Creek, a St. Joseph tributary.

However, the St. Joseph's E. coli problems are probably caused more by livestock waste and from malfunctioning septic systems, Bickel said.

Authorities cited a Grabill-area farmer in June for allowing hog waste to drain from a storage lagoon into a stream that empties into the St. Joseph River. Conservation officers worked with the Allen County Soil and Water Conservation District to dam the lagoon.

Rural residents flush their waste into an estimated 800,000 septic systems throughout Indiana, said Don Jones, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette. Jones said a 1996 survey found about 500 Indiana towns rely on home septic systems for waste disposal.

"Anytime you put another house out there, you have another source of pollution, unless they are connected to a sewer system," said Jim Jackson, county engineer in Williams County, Ohio.

Septic systems must be pumped out every few years and be maintained properly. Otherwise, they can leak sewage.

Jones recommends installing a $100-$200 effluent filter on septic tanks. The socklike filter shuts down the system before the septic tank's leach field plugs and fails.

"I wish we could wave an arm and retrofit all the (septic) tanks in the state," Jones said, "because it would make an immediate impact on water quality."