Alarm about E. coli discovered in Mud Bay spring water may give users pause – for about a day, if that long.
Not to diminish the hazard. E. coli is a nasty bacteria. If it gets to you, you’ll have the runs for a week, but you’ll survive it. Most everyone afflicted does.
The bottom line is a lot of people have drunk a lot of Mud Bay water for a lot of years without ill effect. They’re not likely to stop.
This week’s news story reminded me of the discovery of giardia in the Piedad Road water system in November 1988. Just as during last year’s E. coli scare in the borough water supply, the state advised Piedad residents to boil their water until further notice – for weeks or months until a sample tested clean.
I drove up to Piedad to see how people were dealing with the news. At the time, Piedad water came from a pipe in the side of the mountain – treated only by nature. Piedad residents loved the stuff, swore by it along the lines of, “The worst day drinking Pieadad water is still better than the best day of drinking that treated stuff from Lilly Lake.”
Old-timer Mary Meacock scoffed at the state’s warning. “I’ve been drinking that water my whole life. You think I’m going to stop drinking it because there’s a little bit of moose poop in it?” she told me.
Then she told me about a missing Fort Seward soldier whose body was found in Lilly Lake, and the whole town had been drinking lake water for months since he disappeared.
In the mid-1980s, town water needed a lot of work. A common joke was that if you ordered a glass of water and a whiskey-and-water at a local bar, there was no telling the difference between the two without taking a sip. Housewives would phone the water treatment plant to check to see if it was safe to launder white clothes. City administrator candidate Walter Wilcox reported getting “a big slug of alum” in his hair while showering at a local motel.
The City of Haines eventually figured out water treatment. The stuff out of the spigots today is clear and tastes pretty good. But old habits die hard. People who moved here decades ago still don’t trust town water. A lot of them get their water at the spring.
Now, about the “spring.” It’s what the water regulation officials call “surface-water influenced.” That’s evident if you consider the fact that the spring gushes during fall’s rainy season and slows to a trickle during a long dry spell in summer.
Former resident Kevin Allred, a mountaineer and spelunker, climbed up above the spring to where surface water goes into the cliff there. Kevin figured surface water provided most of the “spring” water, filtering down through the rocky hillside to the pipes below. Obviously, as the spring never runs dry, a smaller amount percolates from a subterranean source.
One concern for Kevin – and for others – is that the spring water is exposed at two spots about 15 feet up from the end of the pipes there. Two short wire fences were set up there years ago to keep dogs, people and trash from getting into those pools and contaminating the water.
People worried about E. coli should probably concentrate their efforts to tightening that fence or placing a cap over the pools. It’s an obvious weak point.
The state eventually forced the municipality to start treating Piedad water, which also is “surface-water influenced.” Some folks say the water doesn’t taste as good as it did before the state required chemical treatment.
As for drinking Mud Bay spring water, I’m taking my cue from Mary Meacock.
For the record, the State of Alaska did conduct tests of Mud Bay spring water in 1998, after a rumor spread that a previous sample showed a high level of arsenic in its water. The state’s test found no arsenic and could detect only some sulfate, and at levels far lower than anyone needed to worry about.
Posted 8/24/17