State won't set cell count standards
Although Marion County's recent water crisis has ended, one question remains: Is the Reservoir water safe?
Yes it's safe to drink — local water plants are filtering out any dangerous toxins.
But what about the raw water at the lake itself? Is that water safe to swim, fish, and boat in?
Marion County officials would like to get definite standards telling them when the water is safe and when it isn't.
The county asked for these standards — but the state said no.
In a letter dated Aug. 21, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said it can't establish a standard for cell count numbers. KDHE hasn't found any national or international standards to go by, it said.
The Marion County Health Department received the letter this week, and it shared the information with a host of individuals during a meeting Friday afternoon at the USDA conservation district office in Marion.
Numerous people attended the meeting, including representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, city administrators from Marion, Hillsboro, and Peabody, representatives from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, and county health department officials.
KDHE's letter, sent by Karl Mueldener of the bureau of water and state epidemiologist Gianfranco Pezzino, was in response to an earlier letter sent by David Brazil. Brazil is the Marion County public health sanitarian.
What did Brazil's letter say? It referred to results from Reservoir water samples and also to studies done by national and international scientists.
Since the water crisis began in June, the City of Hillsboro has been sending water samples from the Reservoir to a lab in Missouri. The samples are collected every one or two weeks.
At this lab, scientists perform a "cell count," which determines how much algae exists in the water. Hillsboro workers have been testing water from several points at the Reservoir, including the intake valve at the dam and both swimming beaches.
These results show how much of each algae species exists in the water at that time. Samples are tested for three varieties: aphanizomenon, anabaena, and microcystis. The last two species produce the most toxins, which can attack the body's liver and nervous system.
On July 10, anabaena cell counts exceeded 44,000 cells per milliliter, and microcystis cell counts exceeded 16,254 cells/ml. This was at the Hillsboro Cove swimming beach.
At the water intake valve at the dam, anabaena numbers were nearly 122,000 cells/ml, and microcystis numbers were nearly 34 million cells/ml — an astronomical number.
Is that amount dangerous? Some scientists worldwide say yes.
Studies done at a Florida research lab showed that if a person spent an hour in water with a cell count of 5,000 cells/ml, he or she had "significantly increased" odds for eye irritations, rash, and gastrointestinal symptoms.
When blue-green algae outbreaks occurred in Oregon, state health officials said that people should avoid recreation contact with the water when cell counts hit 15,000 cells/ml.
And according to Morgan Marler, senior water technician for Hillsboro, the World Health Organization says that lake recreation should be stopped in two scenarios: first, if one species' cell count hits 15,000, and second, if the combined cell count of more than one species hits 50,000.
Using these WHO guidelines, the two Reservoir locations as noted above would not have been considered safe on July 10.
