Does the Bush administration always have to blame someone else? Does a bear shit in the woods? The Washington Post asks the second question and answers it with the first (hat tip Lindsay at Majikthise).
Here's the alleged problem. Some major rivers in the DC area, like the Anacostia and Potomac, don't meet EPA standards to be clean enough to swim in. Now work from Virginia Tech reveals that a lot of the enteric bacteria in these rivers that contribute to their non-attainment status come from local wild life, like deer, geese and raccoons, our co-habiting species in the modern suburb. Who is contributing the most to the streams, humans with their broken septic tanks or combined sewer overflows, or the bear shitting in the woods? Sophisticated tests using modern molecular biology techniques have started to unravel some of this:
In this area, some of what these surveys have found is not surprising. One recent study by a Virginia Tech team found that humans are responsible for 24 percent of the bacteria in the Anacostia and 16 percent of the Potomac's, whether the source is a broken septic tank or the District's large sewage overflows during heavy rains. Livestock were also a major problem around the area -- responsible for 10 percent of the Potomac's bacteria, for instance -- because their manure washes out of pastures and the farm fields where it is spread as fertilizer.Then there are nature's own polluters.
In the Potomac and the Anacostia, for instance, more than half of the bacteria in the streams came from wild creatures. EPA documents show that similar problems were found in Maryland, where wildlife were more of a problem than humans and livestock combined in the Magothy River, and in Northern Virginia tributaries such as Accotink Creek, where geese were responsible for 24 percent of bacteria, as opposed to 20 percent attributable to people. (WashPo)
This is a surprise? Of course not.
Deer feast on suburban flowers; raccoons raid backyard pet-food bowls. Nonmigratory Canada geese, descended in part from geese brought to this area as live hunting decoys, have fallen so much in love with golf courses and groomed city parks that their East Coast population now stands at 1.1 million.
It is probably infeasible to reduce the wildlife population sufficiently to allow out of compliance rivers and streams to meet standards. The only wild polluting species at all amenable to control (although apparently not by this administration) is the human species. So the first step should be to reduce to zero human pollution via septic systems and direct sewer discharges. That's both a permitting and an enforcement issue, not exactly this administration's strong suit. Humans are not the only polluters, as these studies show, nor are they always the biggest one, but they are virtually always a "major player." So get tough on them first. Then see where you are. If the stream doesn't meet reasonable health based standards for swimming, well, lowering the standards won't change that.
At the same time, the extent of pollution means that water treatment standards for microbials need to be toughened to deal with wildlife associated pathogens like Cryptosporidium and Giardia. Keep them out of our drinking water with filtration and effective disinfection, replacing chlorination with ozone. These regulations are another thing the Bush administration has been screwing around with.
This isn't an easy problem. Much easier to blame Bambi.
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Wild animals have always shit in the woods. And so did pre-humans and their antecedents. In the world of EPA and ACE compliance issues these studies rarely describe THE biggest factor - human impact to the land. High sloping ground with lots of multi-aged trees (from very old and dead to saplings) plus undercover, catches and filters the shit rolling down hills. Hills denuded of multi aged trees and their undercover (this includes trees in farm like rows) do not sufficiently reduce the amount of wash out by rain of shit and top soil and seed.
Golf courses are true disasters. The monoculture of grass (grief, I hate that stuff) which needs huge amounts of water and fertilizer and herbicides and pesticides (what a pollution dump!) are about as bad as strip malls ... Many cites use grey water to keep the silly stuff (grass) alive for the few animals that like it ..... but grass lawns are worthless at impeding washouts and fertilizers and pesticides. Then there are the cars and the streets which add heavy metals and PCBs and other fine poisons. Streets send the other yuck down into water bodies faster then you can say "eeeeuuuuuwwwwww!" Then don't forget all that other impermeable stuff like roofs and parking lots - anything that does not let water percolate through the soil (and paved with concrete and asphalt). Old growth and messy forests allow more to go INTO the ground to filter out the shit. The in-soil microbes can kill much of the intestinal flora and fauna - you just gotta let Mother Nature do her thing.
What people have done to the land is rip out all the stuff that can discourage the spread of intestinal 'fertilizers' (and the other anthropogenic toxins), stop erosion and replace it with impermeable material, and monuments to a Scottish game (..why, oh why didn't we get into throwing telephone poles instead?)... Then, when our top soil is gone, our water is polluted, and the ocean is dead, we blame the bears pooping in the woods. ...sheesh!
Speaking of shit, what about the grain-fed cattle that are harboring the acid-loving lethal E. coli strain? The USDA, FDA, and CDC have failed to find out how this microbe contaminated spinach and infected almost 200 Americans. According to Promed, this happened in the same place on the same day on the same shift. Yet O157:H7 is a recurring problem in a variety of meat and produce. How come we don't hear about it here? It's topical, and it's a mystery. Your input would be valuable.
This story reads like it came out of the same propaganda mills that trumpeted the results of research studies which
concluded that cow belches and cud outgassing constituted the world's most significant source of greenhouse gas emissions .......
http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag72.htm
In a survey of 233 live and dead otters from Santa Barbara to Half Moon Bay, Calif., the scientists found that a staggering 76 percent of otters near heavy freshwater outflows storm drains and river mouths had antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii. There was also a surprisingly high rate of infection in the general otter population. Forty-two percent of live otters surveyed had antibodies to the parasite, an almost certain sign of infection.
You made some very good points in your post. We need to do something about cleaning up our water. This is also becoming a large problem when it comes to agriculture. A lot of animals are put into a confined space and their fecal matter is making it into our water supply. Working on ways to improve waste management would be a good way to start. In "Livestock Legacy" by Robin Meadows, the author explains how lagoons are used to deal with animal waste. The only problem is that these lagoons are failing to confine the waste and it is getting into groundwater. With a little help from the government it would be possible to deal with these areas that are subject to water pollution. I am not sure how that will go with the superstar politicians we have at the moment though.