Whatever Happened to Tommy Schultz?
Everything You Will
Ever Want to Know About Disease-producing Anaerobic and Aerobic
Bacteria, and How to Get Rid of Them
2003 Update of speech by
Robert Laing at the National Convention of Clean-Flo Dealers,
Orlando Florida, 1980. Copyright 1980, 2003
Introduction:
I asked this question twenty-three years ago in 1980, when I
conducted this study. I am asking it again now, because almost
every lake, river and reservoir in the world is much more
polluted today than it was then. Many lakes had a 5 – 35 percent
reduction in phosphorus and nitrogen since 1980 as a result of
nutrient diversion or abatement. This is only a small percentage
of over 600,000 polluted lakes in the United States today. These
treated lakes and all non-treated lakes continued to deteriorate
as a result of leaves, stormwater and watershed runoff, dust,
pollen, bird droppings and oxygen depletions that result in fish
kills and release massive quantities of phosphorus and nitrogen
from the sediment.
Unfortunately, no information on
Tommy Schultz’s problem could be found today. Only one report of
the problem can be found on the Internet using Google, and that
is a mention of the problem by a city council member, not a
scientist, on a river in Texas.
Trophic State Indices are grossly misleading indicators of the
trophic state of a lake. These indicators look only at
planktonic algae. If a lake is inundated with aquatic weeds and
filamentous algae, the trophic state indicators will indicate
that the lake is in good to excellent condition. A true Trophic
State Index would take into account coliform bacteria, aquatic
macrophytes (weeds), filamentous algae, bottom oxygen, ammonia
and hydrogen sulfide, organic content of the sediment and fish
kills as well as the algal content.
The attached two photos are of two Minneapolis lakes that have
received millions of dollars a year for the past thirty years in
treatments of all sorts by the scientific community. Their
present “trophic state” as claimed by these scientists is very
good, and is improved greatly since 1980. Obviously, you would
not want to swim, fish, boat or stick your big toe into either
of these lakes. So do not be fooled into thinking our lakes,
rivers or reservoirs are in better condition than they were
twenty-three years ago.
The Problem:
On Friday, July 25th, 1980, six-year old Tommy Schultz
complained of a bad headache and began vomiting. This was
followed by excruciating pain. By Monday he slipped into a deep
lethargy. On Tuesday he went into a coma and on the following
Friday he was dead.
Tommy had been swimming in Grant Lake near Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Tommy and his friends were diving to the bottom of the lake and
would bring up a handful of muck to show the others that they
had reached the bottom. While swimming, an amoeba, Naegleria
spp., crawled up Tommy’s nose and burrowed into his brain,
causing what is called amoebic meningoencephalitis. Of the
fifty-five confirmed cases in the world prior to 1980, only one
person survived.
Only six other persons had been known to die of this disease in
Florida’s entire history; but by the end of the month, four
children were dead from the same disease contracted in four
different Florida lakes in four different counties. One of the
lakes was at Disney World, an establishment catering to millions
of tourists.
Brevard County has about one thousand of the fifteen thousand
lakes in Florida. Only twelve lakes were tested that summer and
they were all approved for swimming. Table 1 lists these lakes
and the coliform bacteria counts taken. Most health authorities
nationwide, including Brevard County, allow 1,000 coliform
organisms per 100 ml of water as the maximum allowable level.
All but two of these lakes were at 1000/100ml or greater.
Table 1. Coliform bacteria levels in 12 sanctioned Brevard
County swimming lakes in 1980.
|
Lake |
Coliform level (MPN/100) |
|
Clear Lake |
<1,000 |
|
Camp Biblia |
900 – 1,000 |
|
Wickham Park Lake |
2,000 – 4,300 |
|
Wickham Park, back lake |
8,300 |
|
Police Foundation Park |
<1,000 |
|
Max K. Rhodes Lake |
30,000 |
|
Kneckt Park |
1,000 |
|
Port Malabar Park |
1,500 – 7,700 |
|
Valkeria Park |
4,100 |
|
Grant Lake |
1,000 – 5,000 |
|
Long Point Recreation Lake |
2,500 – 10,200 |
|
Micco Park Lake |
1,200 – 30,000 |
|
Little Hollywood Lake |
7,800 |
On September 2,
1980, Nancy Cooper of Palm Bay wrote to the Cocoa, Florida
newspaper, pleading that all dangerous lakes be closed. Her
child had just contracted a Salmonella infection at Wickham Park
Lake (Table 1).
County officials had earlier announced that Naegleria were
probably present in all of the Brevard County lakes and probably
in most of Florida’s lakes. Only two years earlier, Tyndall, et
al (1978) found no growth of Naegleria fowleri in water samples
taken from lakes in Florida or Texas, other than those
associated with warm water from power plants or water cooling
towers. The amoeba required the elevated temperatures associated
with these artificial structures. In contrast, in 1980 about
10,000 lakes in Florida and Georgia were infected.
Increase of Pathogenic Bacteria from 1978 to 1980:
Data is not
available on the alarming increase of pathogenic bacteria in
1980. Most lakes are seldom, if ever tested. When coliform
counts are found high, the information is often hidden or
ignored by health authorities. High coliform counts do not
normally reach the newspapers unless someone dies or becomes
violently ill. Most high bacteria sewage discharges such as
sewage treatment plant overflows during heavy rains are simply
reported as sewage dumps. Often lake pollution and bacterial
levels are not reported or monitored after the dumps.
Most of the lakes I have tested over the years had excessively
high coliform counts, even though the beaches were open for
swimming. Holiday Lake at Willard, Ohio had counts taken by the
county as high as 120,000. When I wrote to the county, city and
state health officials asking why the beaches were open, my
letters were not answered and the beaches remained open.
In 1980 and earlier, Lake Apopka in Florida had not total
coliform levels, but Staphylococcus levels as high as 300,000
/100 ml; yet the lake was not closed to swimming, even though
swimmers consistently came out of the water with carbuncles all
over their bodies. The commonly accepted maximum level of
Staphylococcus is 200/100 ml.
When residents of Brevard County, Florida were told that Tommy
Schultz had died and that most of the lakes in Brevard County
had Naegleria, they continued swimming because the newspapers
assured them that more people die each year from shark attacks.
While complete data was not available, I had a data system of my
own. Even though most high bacteria counts are never publicized
or even known, I received nationwide newspaper clippings on many
lakes having problems from 1978 to 1980.
How accurate is the newspaper clipping method of data analysis?
Black, (1975) reporting on all outbreaks of water-borne disease
in the United States in 1975 cited only 24 outbreaks, affecting
10,879 people. This compares reasonably with the 24 news reports
I received in 1978.
Here are the lakes reported to have bacterial problems in
1978: Twenty lakes in a 2.5 square mile community of Medford
Lakes, New Jersey underwent a struggle to keep open to swimmers,
with the bacteria on the winning side;
Botulism killed 1,100 ducks on Smith Lake near Portland, Oregon
and 11,381 ducks at Lake Mckenna near Napolean, North Dakota;
Silver Lake at Dover, Delaware was closed when the fecal count
hit 11,000, 55 times the “safe” level;
Lake Moultrie in southern South Carolina was found to still
contain Naegleria, the amoeba that killed an 8-year old boy in
the same lake the year before;
The swimming beaches at Belleville Lake in Belleville, Michigan
were closed due to high bacterial counts. Studies showed the
mean levels doubling each year since 1976.
These reports are far from inclusive. Actual lakes having
bacterial problems would surely be in the tens of thousands.
However, the same methods were used for recording information
from each year. It is my opinion that the ratio of the number of
reports recovered is representative of the increase in lakes
having problems in 1980.
To continue, the following problems were identified in 1979:
One thousand, five hundred ducks died from botulism at Devils
Lake in North Dakota;
Rainy Lake water at International Falls, a northern Minnesota
lake in a forested area, was declared unfit for human
consumption because the coliform level was too numerous to
count;
The town beaches were closed at Southbury and at Monroe,
Connecticut due to total coliform counts of 4,200 and 1,400
respectively, while the beach at Shady Rest, Connecticut was
kept open with a count of 6,400;
The swimming area at Crystal Lake in Polk County, Florida was
closed due to high coliform counts and a lake at Sebastian was
closed after several people reported sore throats, runny noses
and other ailments.
1980: In contrast, we have reports of 50 percent of all
lakes in Florida and Georgia containing Naegleria in 1980,
approximately 10,000 or more. Four deaths occurred in Florida, a
salmonella infection in Florida and 12 lakes in Brevard County
(the only ones tested) remained open for swimming in 1980 even
though the bacterial levels were dangerously high. Two lakes in
Orlando, Florida, Lake Underhill and Lake Davis were closed
because of a sewage dump. Lake McGarity and Lake Gleason in
Volusia County, Florida closed to swimming because of high
bacterial counts.
So far, we have only looked at Florida in 1980. But this is only
the tip of the iceberg. Let us now look at the rest of the
nation. Also reported in 1980 were the following:
Health officials at Danbury, Connecticut changed the standards
so that residents could swim in Candlewood Lake when the count
exceeds 1,000/100 ml;
Lake Zoar and Pomeraug River in Southbury, Connecticut were
reopened after coliform levels dropped to 400/100 ml at one site
while other sites still registered
2,000 – 2,500/100 ml;
Lake Welsh in Rockland, New York’s Harrison State park was
closed when 46 swimmers became ill. The disease was caused by
Shigella, a group of microorganisms that causes dysentery with
symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting and cramps. The Welch Lake
shigellosis outbreak in 1980 may be compared to all cases
reported comprehensively from 1961 to 1975, a period of 14
years. Only two outbreaks were attributed to swimming in
contaminated water during that period (Black, et al., 1978). The
organism is normally contracted from feces.
In New York, thousands of fish died from myxosporidian, a
parasite that was found in the brains of perch and walleye;
Thirty ducks died of botulism at Lake Como in St. Paul,
Minnesota; 17 at Barker Lake in Rolling Meadows, Illinois; 5,000
ducks at Lake Ander, South Dakota and 17 ducks at a lake at
Richland College in Richardson, Texas;
Thirty swimmers suffered from nausea, diarrhea and headaches at
Shepard Lake in Ringwood, New Jersey before the lake was closed;
Swimming was banned at Valley Lake in Lake County, Illinois due
to high bacteria levels. In McHenry County, Wonder Lake, Lake in
the Hills, Lake Killarney, Griswald Lake, Lakemoor Lake, Crystal
Lake, Timber Lake and several beaches along the Fox River were
posted as unsafe for swimming;
In Chicago, 15 beaches were closed on Lake Michigan because of
high bacteria levels and globs of raw, floating sewage. This was
the most closings ever recorded for Chicago;
At Lake Nixon near Little Rock, Arkansas, swimming was banned
after a child contracted meningitis in the lake;
Fish were killed in Lake Mitchell at Mitchell, South Dakota by
the bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila. High bacteria levels at Lake
Metogoshe, North Dakota caused state officials to speculate that
the lake would not sustain life after 1995;
Kearsley Lake in Genesee Township, Michigan was closed when
100,000 gallons of untreated sewage entered the lake due to a
sewage pump malfunction;
And finally, water drawn from Lake Marble Falls at Marble Falls,
Texas and processed for drinking water caused gastroenteritis
with over 350 residents. The entire town was given gamma
globulin shots to prevent a hepatitis epidemic.
In summary, we received reports on 24 lakes in 1978, seven lakes
in 1979 and 63 lakes in 1980. This does not include about 10,000
lakes in various reports that all of the Brevard County, Florida
lakes and half of all lakes in Florida and Georgia contain
Naegleria.
The method used for this analysis was crude, to be sure. I have
witnessed many dead ducks from botulism that were never reported
in the news media. At the time of my study, it was too early to
receive comprehensive reports of pathogenic outbreaks in 1980. A
comprehensive study of past outbreaks would require several
years of study but a simple graph of trends would be
enlightening. I believe enough reports were made via the
newspapers to give a strong indication that an alarming outbreak
of pathogenic bacteria did occur in 1980. If the trend has
continued, this country may face some perilous times and Tommy
Schultz and ten thousand lakes in only Florida and Georgia may
not become a forgotten statistic.
Pathogenic Bacteria Since 1980:
While almost nothing has been published on Naegleria since 1980
other than a councilman’s report, I am convinced by the
increased pollution of almost all lakes that Naegleria incidence
has probably increased. A search for coliform bacteria in lakes
on the Internet today will produce about four or five thousand
results. While it may contain more reports than just newspapers,
only a few newspapers are published on the Internet. Yet the
Internet results are considerably more than the inclusive search
of the nation’s newspapers produced in 1978 – 1980.
Naegleria must have organic sediment to grow. Almost every lake
in the world has much more organic sediment today than they had
in 1980.
As mentioned earlier, a lake with extensive aquatic macrophyte
(weed) growth has a good to excellent Trophic State Index. An
excellent description of this problem can be found in “Review of
reported faecal pollution of Lake Burley Griffin”, March/April
2001published by the National Capital Authority, Commonwealth of
Australia. This article describes a lake inundated with
macrophytes. Turbidity, chlorophyll-a, total nitrogen and total
phosphorus averaged 50 percent less than the average values from
1993 to 2000. With all this good news, E. coli was measured at
the astronomical level of 330,000 cfu/100 ml. Stormwater runoff
typically has 3000 – 5000 cfu/100 ml. To reach a level of
330,000 from incoming sewage, an entire sewage treatment plant
for a large city would have to dump into the lake. Similarly,
300 million 1 kg (2.2 lb.) birds would be needed to produce such
a level. Obviously, with all that good water quality, the lake
itself rather than influent sewage was breeding the bacteria.
Most pathogenic bacteria require low or zero oxygen levels and a
nutrient broth to multiply.
Conclusion:
Surely the incidence of Naegleria has increased since 1980. It
is understandable that if Brevard County and most of Florida
shut down all their lakes for swimming, tourism would plummet
and public outcry would explode.
It is also highly probable that bacteria levels in most all
lakes have increased and public health agencies are either not
testing, or are keeping it quiet. If Lake Burley Griffin in
Australia is a harbinger of things to come, lakes are now
starting to grow their own pathogenic bacteria, and we are in
for some real trouble.
It is far past time that action should be taken. Clean-Flo plans
to mail this report to all public health agencies, to present it
at all future speeches, and to publish it on the Internet. Doing
this alone would only frustrate everyone involved. Therefore,
this paper will always be followed by the solution to the
bacteria problem, along with the solution to the ever-increasing
organic sediment in lakes, and the odor produced by the
sediment. Please see the solution to the problems in the
following paper.
References
Black, R.E., et al., Epidemiology of common source outbreaks
of shigellosis in the United States. Amer. Jour. Epidemiology,
108, p.47 (1978),
Black, R.E., et al., Outbreaks of water borne disease in the
United States, 1975. Journal Infectious Disease, 137. p.370
(1978).
Tyndall. R.L. et al., Isolation of Pathogenic Naegleria from
artificially heated waters. Proc. Microbiology of Power Planr
Thermal Effluents, Sept. 18, 1977, Iowa City, 117 (1978).
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