I had a close friend here in Milwaukee who got really sick this summer from swimming in the lake while sailing after a dry weather overflow. She had no idea an overflow event had even occurred. This is pretty commonplace, and unfortunately, it's really difficult to correlate sewage overflows with illnesses contracted by recreational use, because so few people seek medical attention or make the connection that the water made them sick. There's a huge need to study that connection, but the records pretty much don't exist.

That's why the study we [Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers and the Emergency Department, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin] focused on the drinking water connection, which freaked everyone out. It is highly likely that many of the kids in our study could have gotten sick from recreational use as well. We weren't able to isolate their exposure, but the hospital is now using questionnaires so we can try to get at that question in the future.

Pediatrics, a peer reviewed medical journal, recently published an article on our study of increased visits to a pediatric emergency room for gastrointestinal illnesses after releases of partially treated, or "blended" sewage, here in Milwaukee.

Here's the abstract of the report as it appeared in the journal Pediatrics.

What if one was your child? At least 10 children got sick after swimming in water downstream from a sewage spill in Austin, TX. The children had been released from school early that day and were enjoying an afternoon swim. Of the 15 children that went swimming, only a few didn't get sick. Parents reported vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea, which can be symptoms of contact with untreated sewage. The news media was informed of the spill the day after it happened, the same day the kids went for their swim.

Now the Spills of the Week: