• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Outdoors / DNR studies illness at state beaches

DNR studies illness at state beaches

September 9, 2004 By admin

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is conducting a pilot project to determine if swimmers get sick from the water at state beaches with high bacteria levels. Janice Boekhoff is overseeing the project — and says they’ve been asking swimmers at three state beaches to report if they’ve been sick. She says we’ve never had a documented case of water-borne illness in Iowa and she says they’re wondering if there really are cases out there. She says the E-P-A sets the bacteria standards and those are based on “point sources”, such as a sewer pipe. Boekhoff says the E-P-A has not studied “non-point” sources, such as rainwater runoff from fields that might contain manure. Boekhoff says they believe the high-bacteria problems at Iowa beaches are caused mainly by those non-point sources, and the E-P-A concerns about illness may not be the standard to use. She says you can get sick from those non-point sources, but the level of illness may be much different than we think, and she says that’s what they’re trying to find out. Boekhoff says they’ve been asking for information from swimmers for three weekends, including this past Labor Day weekend. She says it’s just meant to be a small pilot project and they’re hoping from this project to get a full blown epidemiological study. The beaches in the pilot project are: Backbone State Park in Delaware County, Pleasant Creek in Linn County and Rock Creek in Jasper County.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Outdoors Tagged With: Department of Natural Resources

Featured Stories

Final employee who was there at the launch of the Iowa Lottery to retire

No more USPS mail in Iowa prisons; inmates to get copies of mail

State officials warn of influx of fake prescription drugs laced with fentanyl

‘Brain-eating amoeba’ discovered in Taylor County lake

Cedar Rapids therapist’s relationship with student leads to years in prison

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Knee injury sidelines Iowa’s Feuerbach

Iowa State’s McDonald has unfinished business

Hawkeyes open fall camp

Northern Iowa picked to finish fifth in MVFC race

Hunter Dekkers takes over at Iowa State

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2022 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC