About 20 triathletes sickened after Oklahoma City event

[Centerback]

http://newsok.com/about-20-triathlet...ad_story_title

This can't be good for business...

[Karried]

That is horrible.

Well, could be much worse... 20 out of 367 athletes became ill.

PR needs to nip this in the bud and find some sort of solution asap. Treatment, chemicals, filtration, whatever works to take care of it now ...

[soonerguru]

We really need to clean up the river or stop allowing people to swim in it. Yuck.

[BG918]

This doesn't surprise me. You couldn't pay me to swim in that river. They would have been better off using Overholser, Hefner, Draper, or Thunderbird.

[BDP]

Yeah, that's awful.

I wonder how that compares to when people swim these things in the East River, Hudson River, San Francisco Bay, etc. I know surfers get sick a lot on the west coast. Obviously, that doesn't diminish the need to fix this problem, but I know it's not uncommon and I just wonder how it measures up.

Ideally we could clean it up and make it a SAFER alternative when compared to those venues.

[lasomeday]

If they had more plants along the banks and the tributaries it wouldn't be as bad. The plants/trees absorb a lot of harmful chemicals. But, they love the rocks along the banks, so they are probably going to put more chemicals to adjust whatever it is in there.

[Pete]

Some of you may know I'm an avid triathlete and have competed in races all over the country. I've swam in all types of bodies of water, many of which most people would never set foot in.

So, when people were saying the OK River was too manky to allow swimming, I made the points above and assumed things would be fine. After all, you're not in that long (for the elites only about 20 minutes) and of course, you try not to drink any of the water.

What may be different here is the runoff from agriculture in and around the area.

Anyway, I hope they get to the bottom of this and that this particular race can go on. But it seems the PR damage has already been done regardless of outcome.


BTW, the only other triathlon in the OKC area features a swim in Lake Hefner. In fact, it's ironman-length so everyone is in the water for 1 to 2 hours. Never heard of anyone getting sick there and they've held that race (Redman) several times now.

[lasomeday]

Yeah, Lake Hefner is a water source for the city. So, I think they keep an eye on it more.

[OKCTalker]

Pete - I know some good local triathletes, and they discuss measurable water quality at upcoming events, apparently using government-provided data. They were specifically referring to e-coli (sp?) and other scary stuff in parts per billion. Who has those data available, and do they collect data on the Oklahoma River?

[dalelakin]

Old article states the same as the new.

I'll read first next time

[fromdust]

the Oklahoman needs to work on grammar. the featured video states, " Triathletes take ill after Oklahoma River event." take ill, huh?

[LordGerald]

Pete - I know some good local triathletes, and they discuss measurable water quality at upcoming events, apparently using government-provided data. They were specifically referring to e-coli (sp?) and other scary stuff in parts per billion. Who has those data available, and do they collect data on the Oklahoma River?

They are called pathogens. If you want to read about all the gory details, here is the link:

North Canadian River Pathogen Report

link: http://www.acogok.org/Newsroom/Downl...tmdlreport.pdf

This is a big PDF that may take a few minutes to download. None of this is news. ODEQ and the City have been well aware of the pathogens in this water body for years. Don't ever eat any fish that comes out of the river!

LG

[FritterGirl]

the Oklahoman needs to work on grammar. the featured video states, " Triathletes take ill after Oklahoma River event." take ill, huh?

It's a colloquialism, at worst, but is considered standard use and is by no means "incorrect."

Take ill Definition | Definition of Take ill at Dictionary.com

[fromdust]

It's a colloquialism, at worst, but is considered standard use and is by no means "incorrect."

Take ill Definition | Definition of Take ill at Dictionary.com

it shouldn't be used in formal writing. i think that would be newspapers, but maybe not.

[okcpulse]

Look, $hit happens. All of this nit-picking is getting old. I can't even stand to read the comments section of The Oklahoman anymore because the remarks are coming from people acting like a bunch of village idiots.

It's a river, people, not a swimming pool. And it's not that deep either. The difference between the Oklahoma River and Lake Hefner is depth. What's the average temperature of the water in the Oklahoma River during the summer months compared to Lake Hefner? Deeper water means cooler temperatures. Constant shallow depths results in temperatures warm enough to be a practical Petri dish, in this case the Oklahoma River.

Why are we so worried about PR damage? If our own nation is scrutinizing Oklahoma to this extent, then not all of its dogs are barking.

[OKCMallen]

Why are we so worried about PR damage? If our own nation is scrutinizing Oklahoma to this extent, then not all of its dogs are barking.

Seems like it's worth worrying about since we've been focused on making the river an attraction for sporting events. If you can't even get in the water without getting sick, I'm thinking we might not get some sporting events...would especially hate if this affected our ability to attract rowing events.

[sroberts24]

we need some kind of filtration system, that will solve all our problems! and be good pr considering this mess

[okcpulse]

Seems like it's worth worrying about since we've been focused on making the river an attraction for sporting events. If you can't even get in the water without getting sick, I'm thinking we might not get some sporting events...would especially hate if this affected our ability to attract rowing events.

If it happened again, then I would worry. A repeat offender will definitely start chasing off guests.

[venture]

we need some kind of filtration system, that will solve all our problems! and be good pr considering this mess

Anything would have to be a natural filtration system using plants and such. We can't really treat this like the canal. Maybe the answer would be developing the lake further to the west more and then implement more plants and such to help filter it out.

[Stan Silliman]

I'm sure they've made a study of the upriver, runoff, chemicals, etc. Packing Town is not involved, right? Anyway...

[Luke]

What about a filter dam? Would that work? Or did I just invent something?

[Karried]

If you did I'm running to the patent office asap ...lol

[betts]

There's no data currently that proves those athletes were sickened by the water, as far as I can tell. Most E coli is non pathogenic, and, if you read the document, they're talking about bacteria that colonize us normally. It's kind of disgusting to think that people are swimming in water contaminated by fecal material, but truly, we're all swarming with them right now anyway. E coli 0157 h7 can cause life threatening disease in genetically susceptible individuals, and sicken others, but I don't see any data showing that's the type of E coli they've quantified. If it is, that's a more serious problem. I think we should make an effort to have clean water in any body of water we're inviting people to come swim in, but we don't have any hard data that these athletes were sickened by the water. This is the time of year when we see enteroviral and other GI viral infections, and it's possible a viral infection made them all sick, since I'm sure they were in contact with each other socially. So, before every gets all up in arms, we need definitive proof that these people's symptoms were caused by a bacteria we know is living in the water of the Oklahoma River.

[Luke]

Maybe it's the swine flu.

[Pete]

BTW, they are now saying there were only three illnesses -- out of 357 -- rather than 20.

Still, perception is unfortunately reality and since this was a national circuit race, they may have a very difficult time getting the elites to come back. Especially since this was the first go-round.

Unfortunately, it's going to be very difficult to conclusively prove what caused the sickness. And since even many people here were already bad-mouthing the water quality, it's going to be even more difficult to change that perception.


BTW, a couple of months ago I led an ocean swim at a spot in Marina Del Rey that always receives high cleanliness ratings. But on this particular day, there was a ridiculous amount of trash in the water -- so much so I decided to cut the swim short.

The next couple of days, a couple of people claimed illness and immediately blamed that swim. It seemed very obvious to me that because the water appeared dirty, it was automatically fingered as the cause.

I wouldn't be surprised that that is exactly what happened here... 1) Reports and perceptions that the river isn't clean; and 2) the first-ever organized swim in that water.

As I said before, at that distance people just aren't in the water very long and they certainly aren't ingesting it. I seriously doubt that the water caused the claimed symptoms, but as I said, it's the perception that will be the reality here.