Full story at Fox News Click on WORLD news in the left sidebar. Story link is near the bottom. If this doesn't illustrate how vunerable we are to water-born disease, even in "good" times , I don't know what will. One week you're fine, 7 days later you're fertilizer...

Horror in Holland as Toll Rises in Deadly Outbreak

2.12 p.m. ET (1912 GMT) March 20, 1999 BOVENKARSPEL, Netherlands  Farmers in muddy clogs and faded berets wander around a complex of brick warehouses, chatting about tractors and trying to forget that this bucolic setting became a breeding ground for death. Last month, they were displaying bulbs and cut flowers at a renowned flower show to 80,000 visitors from around the world. But somewhere in the complex  experts still haven't figured out where  the rare but deadly bacteria that cause Legionnaires' disease were lurking. A week ago, people started dying. By Saturday, the toll had risen to 16. At least 90 other people were confirmed to have been infected by the disease that attacks the lungs, and 199 more with similar symptoms were being checked.

snip

"If you see how the bacteria works, you realize the source could be anywhere. We can't rule anything out," said Boon. Although the focus has been on the flower show, a government health agency said Friday the source might have been a whirlpool display filled from a fire hose in the building. The agency urged people nationwide not to use whirlpool baths or hot tubs unless they have been cleaned, and said inspections of venues for all public events would be stepped up. The outbreak prompted Environment Minister Jan Pronk this past week to propose tighter laws on drinking water systems. Legionnaires' disease first surfaced in 1976 at a convention of the American Legion in Pennsylvania, where 220 of the 4,000 people attending were infected and 34 died. The bacteria that are believed to cause the illness are found in soil and thrive in air-conditioning ducts, storage tanks and rivers. Experts say the germ, spread through the air via tiny water particles, kills one of every six people it infects. It is, by all accounts, a terrible death  the lungs fill with a bloody foam and the victim suffocates.

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Mr. K
****glad he has seen so many posts on water storage, safety, and sanitation lately****

-- Mr. Kennedy (Mr.K@home.now), March 20, 1999

Answers

Chilling but helpful.

Thanks Mr. K

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), March 20, 1999.

Cholorine is the cheapest way to kill the bacteria. It occurs in cooling towers. These cooling towers are on the roof of high rise buildings, and industrial towers are near the power house or boiler room area. These towers are a large air wash and catch anything that the fans can suck in to them. The problem occurs when someone crosses a water line from the cooling water to domestic water. Bingo.

These germs are everywhere, and can live in a pipe for up to one year. The most effective treatment is cholorine. One part per million of cholorine will kill all the bacteria within 30 min.

When the water is off and you want to disinfect it for drinking, add a little cholorine. 4 drops of bleach to a gallon of water. Stir it up wait 30 min., take a cup of water and smell it.. You should be able to smell a faint odor of cholorine. It not add 4 more drops, and repeat the process. It depends on what is in the water as to how much cholorine to add.

When you start adding cholorine it only knows it has to eat whatever is in the water. It does this by adding oxygen to the water. Oxygen destroys the bacteria. Water that moves very little will have more bacteria than water going over a water fall.

But in the cooling towers the fans are pulling in such massive amounts of air, with thousands of gallons of water per min. falling through them, then the water enters a dark pipe and is pumped into the building where the bacteria finds a place to breed. Inside the dark pipe there is no oxygen in the water and it breeds. You add cholorine to the water, oxygen flows through the pipes and kills the bacteria.

For y2k you can purchace cholorine at the supermarket. Look for the tablets that you drop into the toilet tank. The WHITE ones only.!!!Drop one in the water for a few min. and stir it around. remove it and store in a plastic zip lock bag or two. You will not need to leave it in the water very long, but still wait 30 min. for it to react. Then check for the odor.

You can also use bleach or swimming pool cholorine. Some times called sodium hypocholorite.

-- (ludlow@bellsouth.com), March 20, 1999.

Ludlow,
Thanks for the highly enlightening post.

You mentioned When the water is off and you want to disinfect it for drinking, add a little cholorine. 4 drops of bleach to a gallon of water.

I have seen posted in other threads as high as 14 drops per gallon (and who knows, some folks might be using turkey basters....)

I'll be looking into finding the recommended "standard" recommendation from say, the FDA. However, in the meantime, if you know the recommended standard, please post or verify the 4 drops per gallon. I have been putting 8 in each gallon of my water, and as I recall, that was a recommended standard, but I am not 100% sure.

My motto is check, verify the check, then check again, ...so I'll be looking on the net and in some books for a little while to verify a standard dose per gallon.

Your contribution on this is appreciated!

Mr. K
***hitting the books***

-- Mr. Kennedy (looking@ppm.issues), March 20, 1999.

When survival camping, I have always used 2 drops of bleach per quart, or 8 per gallon of CLEAR, running surface water. You would need to filter very turgid or silty water.

Although the areas I camped and hiked were noted for gardia problems (Cumberland Plateau area in TN and KY), I have never had a problem with any water treated this way. You must give it a minimum of 30 minutes to work. Double that if the water is silty or very cold.

-- Jon Williamson (pssomerville@sprintmail.com), March 20, 1999.

Maybe it's just my insomnia-addled brain, but I'm almost positive that Legionnaire's Disease is transmitted ONLY by inhalation, not by ingestion of water or food. In other words, it's in the air, not the water. Can anyone back me up on this?

-- sparks (wireless@home.com), March 21, 1999.

Sparks..Hi!..You are correct..the medical name is LEGIONELLOSIS..Here is a link..(I hope!)

link< /a>

\/\/illis in OKC, OK

-- Willis (justforthe@record.net), March 21, 1999.

Sorry, Sparks, my first try at a hotlink obviously didn't work, so here's the URL:

http://cythera.ic.gc.ca/spansweb/ndis/diseases/legi_e.html

One of these days.....

\/\/illis

-- Willis (justforthe@record.net), March 21, 1999.

Sorry, Sparks, my first try at a hotlink obviously didn't work, so here's the URL:

http://cythera.ic.gc.ca/spansweb/ndis/diseases/legi_e.html

One of these days.....

\/\/illis

-- Willis (justforthe@record.net), March 21, 1999.

Sparks
A suggestion: read (I mean really READ), don't scan.

Above in the first post of this thread, it states:

Experts say the germ, spread through the air via tiny water particles, kills one of every six people it infects.

You aren't wrong, but not entirely right either. Airborn water particles....hmmm, don't you need water to get water particles?

Mr.K
****sits back to wonder why the second paragraph went on and on about the government agency putting out a national warning about exposure to (water) whirlpools if water wasn't a factor in this infectious disease article****

-- Mr. Kennedy (reading@the.moment), March 21, 1999.

Spread by air particles? You've obviously never seen one of these chiller's in action, when the thing is running there's this big fan as big as a large DC-10 propeller, the sprinkler is going, and there's this fine mist of water being blown upwards at 100 miles an hour.

It's a superb aerosol machine. Just add yo favorite bacteria... (dont forget to neutralize the cholrine first)

What a cluster!

-- Got Anthrax? (deepshit@doodoo.com), March 21, 1999.

Indoor contrails? nooooo.......couldn't be.....

-- oboy (oboy@oboy.oboy), March 21, 1999.

Yes, Mr. K, water's a factor, but what I was trying to get across was that mere exposure to water that has the bacillus does not mean a person will contract Legionnaire's Disease. The germs must be airborne, albeit in water vapor, for it to be aspirated into the lungs.

Willis, thanks for the link.

-- sparks (wireless@home.com), March 21, 1999.