Here's what happened as near as I can reconstruct it:

-Heavy thunderstorm Saturday night knocks out power to the local YMCA. -Youngest son goes swimming with group of friends in the Y pool. -After 45 minutes of swimming, the water jets come on in the pool; the water has "lots of bubbles and turned yellow", according to my son. -Soon after the jets come on, everyone is told to get out of the pool by a man. (my son thinks he was one of the fathers there with his kids) -People are coughing like crazy, some are faint, some have trouble breathing, chests and throats hurt. -Everyone in the entire building was evacuated to the outside. -Two or three police cars, one fire truck and two ambulances arrive to begin giving first aid. -Fifteen people were taken to the local hospital (one a 7 months pregnant woman), some by ambulance, some by private car and treated for varying degrees of chlorine poisoning. -Some people were admitted to the hospital. All were assessed and given breathing treatments. The worst cases were put on oxygen and given IV steroids. One of my son's friends was admitted because he was vomiting and having trouble breathing. He was kept on oxyzen. (When they tried to take him off oxygen last night, he still had difficulty breathing so they put him back on the 02.) -Those released were given a script for oral steroids and told to report back to the hospital if they had any other problems.

You know what really burns me? The same thing happened last year at the same Y!

Will we see something similar to this next year if there are power outages at water plants?

Gotta go before I explode. Linda

-- newbiebutnodummy (Linda@home.com), April 26, 1999

Answers

you expect there to be water plant/power problems and you're worried about your local "Y"? I hope that's all you end up being bothered with

-- zoobie (zoob@aol.com), April 26, 1999.

Sorry for your experience, Linda; that is unsettling and does not promote great trust in TPTB. In Cascadia, spotlighting the City of Portland, where the famed pure water flows from the Cascades, guess what is used to "treat" the water? Chlorine + ammonia. That's right, together. Before it comes out of the tap. They say they're Y2K OK and can go manual.

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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), April 26, 1999.

Linda, Was this the Y in Midwest City? There was a power outage there for about an hour Saturday, and then many shorter 20 to 30 second ones to follow on up to Sunday morning.

-- (cannot-say@this.time), April 26, 1999.

notice her sig line

she is concerned about this problem, writ large.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), April 26, 1999.

zoobie-I could care less about the Y. What I _do_ care about is my son having problems breathing and the possibility of contracting a lung infection over the next two weeks. This whole scenario simply underlines to me the need for clean drinking water to be stored for next year and that it is important to stay on top of the local water treatment plant to see if they are prepared and/or have a contingency plan.

cannotsay@thistime (is it Donna?) Nope, not MWC but Norman.

Leska-thanks, I knew that yours would be a sympathetic answer. Linda

-- newbutnodummy (Linda@home.com), April 26, 1999.

"Will we see something similar to this next year if there are power outages at water plants?" NO.

Water treatment facilities are designed with safety engineering. it is not possible for a toxic amount of chemicals to be released into the water supply, because the storage facility is small enough to preclude that eventuality.

sorry to hear about your kid. Please don't compare this to y2k tho' alright?

-- (.`.`@.`.`), April 26, 1999.

a,

How dare you tell me that something like a release of chemicals into the water supply is impossible. People run those water treatment plants and people make mistakes. Accidents do happen. Anything is possible with chemicals at any time. A little bit of this, mixed with a little bit of that, with a twist of this and that, and a catastrophe happens. Machinery fails, people fail, and stuff happens every day. Do not make silly assurances that all is OK. You cannot say that about anything built or run by mankind. "Trust but verify".

-- Doc Mortar (xit007@email.com), April 26, 1999.

you don't know anything about engineering, do you. take a tour of a plant sometime. ask how they prevent such catastrophies.

-- (.`.`.`@.`.`.`), April 26, 1999.

When the "standard reply" is "we'll use manual controls" from the local "powers that be" - and when such such manual controls have not been exercised, drilled, and tested on each shift since automated controllers were brought on-line 10-15 years ago, yes, I absolutely expect that kind of "over/under" regulation - particularly as usage swings up and down irregularly.

Could be high, low, or stable, but at the wrong level. We lost a child here in a public swimming pool due to disease transmitted through pool water - same can very, very easily happen with drinking water polluted upstream by one or more sewage plant(s) controlled wrong, and a treatment plant regulated improperly. Except that hundreds (thousands ?) could drink the water before problems are noticed by manual sampling - if the mannual sampling is done right.

Its real - and I've tried manual feed controls - they are not easy over an entire shift, much less over several shifts in a row. And if one person is manually regulating one valve, who controls the rest? If one operator moves around, how long before he gets back to each valve?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), April 26, 1999.

Thanks, Robert, your voice of reason, science, logic and experience is always a relief! ;*P  Wonder if the water will even be safe enough to shower in, providing the electricity is on. Maybe we'll all be bleach heads in January ;^}

Another apropo for "Make my day, punk" mad max psyche-out rollover

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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), April 26, 1999.

Senator Bennett reported a water company in Utah that rolled their clocks forward to test, and one of the failures was the chemicals accidentally released into the water as I recall. He wouldn't name the company, but said it really happened. Does anyone have a link to that story? I know it's in the archives.

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), April 26, 1999.

Do remember that chlorine is toxic stuff when you are planning how to purify water for next year. Chlorine bleach is not the healthiest way to go. Stock up now on liquid oxygenizing agent. I have a friend who had to undergo detox treatment for chlorine after a spell of adding it to her dishwater and not wearing rubber gloves.

-- Shivani Arjuna (odnsmall@aojl.com), April 26, 1999.

OK, here is a snip from the Salt Lake Tribune. I'm not saying it did or did not happen, just reporting what Senator Bennett said:

"Curious about what would happen when the new millennium ticks in, a water-purification plant in Utah set its clocks ahead to Jan. 1, 2000. With computers ill-equipped to handle the new date, the plant malfunctioned, dumping poisonous quantities of chlorine and other chemicals into the water.

It is one story in an arsenal of anecdotes employed by Sen. Bob Bennett, who is preaching preparedness for the so-called ``Year 2000 Problem,'' also known as ``Y2K.''

But is it a true story? Or is it another urban legend, a tall tale spun by Bennett, the self-proclaimed ``Paul Revere'' of Y2K?

Bennett says the story is true. He recounted it during an address last month to the Colorado River Users Association in Las Vegas, but refused to name the Utah water treatment plant in question. ``I was sworn to secrecy,'' he said afterward.

The managers of Utah's public water treatment plants say the Y2K test did not occur at their facilities -- but they are not ignoring the possibility."

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), April 26, 1999.

In 1987 in Almagordo, MN, there was a computer failure (I don't remember the cause) which resulted in a massive dumping of flouride into the water system. There were a number of hospitalizations and two deaths resulting from this failure.

If you want to find factual evidence of what MAY (and I stress may) happen, go to the website of the Public service Commission of the State of California. I'll see if I can find the URL in my database. The PSC pretty well explores the potential disasters regarding the water supply and waste water treatment. And they aren't very polly about it either. Suggest the doubters read the governments word on this then come back and we can have a 'learned' discussion.

-- Lobo (athelair@yahoo.com), April 27, 1999.

Sorry, that's supposed to be Alamagordo,NEW MEXICO not Minnisota.

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), April 27, 1999.

Just wait for an "accidental" release of fluoride.

The STATED purpose of fluoridating municipal water is to protect the teeth of "the children (sob!)". Gag. Hasn't anyone heard of fluoridated toothpaste? So we all get a dose, whether we want it or not. (That's the government way, to REDUCE choice.)

I go along with the theory of some of the "alternative medicine" people who posit that since fluoride is an industrial waste product, is too toxic and polluting to put in sewage water or waste dumps, and so is too expensive to dispose of safely, they bought city councils all over the country and sold it as a "medicinal" water treatment additive.

And, our pour-through water filters, even the 1 micron ones, don't get rid of fluoride -- got to go with the expensive, fancy distillers or whatever.

-- A (A@AisA.com), April 27, 1999.

We here in the Portland area have just seen the finish of the largest mandated sewer project in the nation. The largest incorporated area in the United States without a municipal sewer system since the early days of wagon trails and large farms is now DEQ compliant. About 10 years ago the DEQ forced the city to comply with national standards and the result was a 10 year project. I was involved in that project and the little known or talked about aspect was the polution of the deep water well system the city uses for shortages and back up. We have a natural gravity water system for most of the urban area from the Bull Run water shed. It is some of the purest water in the world. Here is the problem; If the Sewer Treatment Plants were to lose power and the ability to process raw sewage city wide, the overflows would quite possibly leach into the deep wells backup system causing a potential permanent loss of these resources. Even if the Water Bureau was compliant and functioning, it may have to be suspended to keep us from flushing or taking showers or washing clothes etc. Also the cities river systems would be drastically impacted. We already release an unbeliveable amount of raw sewage into them every winter because of combination storm/sewer systems which can't handle the increased usage due to population growth and combined with the heavy rains brought on by El Nina. One of our largest rivers in unfit to swim in and I definetly wouldn't eat the fish. The thread goes on and on... Several of the smaller adjacent cities use these rivers for their water source. That's right ..they pump water from the river into a water treatment plant and then pump it to us , so to speak, So this Little Sambo story illustrates the complete interdependency of all the utility systems and subsequently all of us. If the electricity goes out.. were screwed, if the Water Treatment Facility fails.. were screwed, if the Sewer Treatment Facilities fail.. well! If any fail, they all fail. Oh yea, if Bonneville Power Administration (caretakers of the hydroelectric herebouts) is a Federal Agency, and they are a huge part of the Western Grid, and NERC states that "Islanding" is not an option, Think we might have a prob..prob..prob..prob..problem?

-- spun@lright (mikeymac@uswest.net), April 27, 1999.

a,

Lets have a round of applause for safety engineering. The following structures and devices are all testimony to the wonderful engineers who built them. 1.Tower of Pisa--they failed to set it on bedrock 2.Numerous bridges throughout history that have failed most notable would be the Tacoma Narrows bridge that collapsed due to wind oscillation. Great Engineering there. 3.The Titanic--faulty steel rivets and bad steel. Of course the iceberg got in the way. 4.Apollo 13--best engineers in the world built that exploding marvel. 5.Challenger Space Shuttle--faulty O rings-- What is amazing is the engineers knew the O-rings were bad. Christa McCauliffe deserved better. 6.Pinto gas Tanks--Ford engineers killed a lot of folks with this great design. 7.Three Mile Island--Engineering at its best 8.Chernobyl--The engineers were playing with the reactor. Bored I guess. 9.Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkway--collapsed-- Thank you to all who designed that execution device. 10.Bhopal, India-- Chemical engineers didn't want to be left out. All their safety devices FAILED!

I could go on, but I won't. Safety Engineering is baloney. Things fail. They sometimes do not work. Water treatment facilities are not immune from the same types of failures. I don't care how much safety engineering you build into it.

-- Doc Mortar (xit007@email.com), April 27, 1999.

Water/Wastewater is one of only 3 industrial sectors that EPA is focusing its Y2K efforts on. The following is the link to EPA's Y2K page on this sector: http://www.epa.gov/year2000/ow.htm

I didn't see anything indicating that an accidental release of chlorine or fluoride (but didn't fully review all the info). However, EPA is concerned that water treatment plants have a contingency plan that ensure that these the treatment plants do not run out of these supplies. More info might be available through these "Y2K Water and Wastewater" discussions groups: http://www.epa.gov/year2000/discuss.html

[Spun, I thought for sure that Boston had the "largest mandated sewer project in the nation", but maybe the difference is that your is "finished". Congratulations, after $$ billions we still aren't there!]

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), April 27, 1999.

water treatment plant hoax has been around for at least 30 years folks. Always unsubstantiated. Safety Engineering. Learn it.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000PjJ

(but then again, maybe the gubmint is out to get us all...roswell, y'now)

-- (.`.`@.`.`), April 27, 1999.