Posted on 06/27/2005 11:33:10 AM PDT by quidnunc
Nothing spoils a day at the beach like these two dreaded words: swim ban.
Summer only officially started last week, and the Chicago Park District already has hoisted the red flag that renders beaches off limits for swimming 23 times.
Trying to pinpoint the source of these bans often turns into an environmental whodunit.
We know the weapon is E. coli, bacteria that are typically harmless but serve as a clue that fecal contamination — and the disease-causing microorganisms that go along with it — might be lurking nearby. When E. coli levels get too high, the "No Swimming" signs aren't far behind.
But who, or what, is pulling the trigger? That's the mystery facing beach managers, environmentalists, public health officials and politicians across the Great Lakes.
A growing body of evidence suggests that the leading suspect is above us — and we don't mean everyone's favorite water-polluting whipping boy, Milwaukee.
Public Beach Enemy No. 1 appears to be gulls.
That's not to say sewage overflows and other factors don't shoulder some of the blame for shuttered beaches. But recent studies in Illinois have fingered gulls as the main E. coli contributor.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
The number of swim bans in Illinois has shot up dramatically in the last decade, and so have doubts about the way decisions are made to keep people from taking a dip in the water. "We really don't know what kind of water people are swimming in. We only know what kind of water they were swimming in yesterday," said Richard Whitman, whose main area of research is beach closures for the U.S. Geological Survey. "And by the time we know, it's a little late to tell them."
That's why the drumbeat is getting louder for better, faster tests to monitor when the water is safe for swimming. Some promising possibilities are undergoing trial runs at a few beaches in Chicago and Lake County.
For several years, E. coli has been the marker scientists looked for in water samples to determine whether it's safe to swim. This common bacteria found in the guts of warm-blooded creatures — humans, dogs, gulls — can be a sign that the water is polluted with fecal matter and pathogens that can trigger anything from a mild stomach infection to life-threatening illness.
"Part of the emerging science is calling into question whether E. coli is an appropriate indicator for human health risks," said Cameron Davis, director of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, formerly known as the Lake Michigan Federation. "That jury is still out."
In the meantime, would-be bathers are getting beached on the beach more than ever.
The number of swim bans in the state jumped from 10 in 1994 to 397 in 2003, according to the most recent figures available from the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
At Chicago's 31 public beaches, swimming was off-limits 128 times last year — more than double the number of swim bans issued in 2000, when the Chicago Park District began tracking the data.
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(Lori Rackl in the Chicago Sun-Times, June 27, 2005)
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A sadder but wiser gull?
BAN the bird!
Gulls just wanna have fun....
Allow the citizens to treat them as a sport such as trap or skeet and the problem goes away.
Flying rats.
Thirty dirty birds
Sitting on a curb
Chirpin' and Burpin'
And eatin' dirty earthworms
Along comes Herbie
From thirty-third and third
Saw the thirty dirty birds
Sitting on a curb
Chirpin' and burpin'
And eatin' dirty earthworms
Oy was he disturbed
So it's either the gulls of the raw sewage we are dumping into the lake?
"Gulls on film,
Two minutes later
Gulls on film..."
-Eric
"Fat bottom gulls you make the rockin' world go round..."
aka Guano.
"I wish they all could be California
Gulls"
Now you're just winging it.
How about a chorus of "Gullfriend in a Coma?"
-Eric
Gull, you really got me now
You got me so I don't know what I'm doin'
Gull, you really got me now
You got me so I can't sleep at night...
-Eric
Plop, plop
Fizz, fizz
Oh what a relief it is
Really, we're all going to end up with egg on our faces.
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