Tag: virus

Migration Season Brings Bird Flu Worries

  • Julie Craves stands in the area where she sets up mist nets during migration to catch land birds. (Photo by Christina Shockley)

Researchers have been monitoring the spread of a potentially deadly strain of avian influenza overseas. Health officials worry the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form that could infect humans. Some researchers say the virus could make its way to the United States as early as this fall… by way of wild migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Researchers have been monitoring the spread of a potentially deadly
strain of avian influenza overseas. Health officials worry the H5N1
strain could mutate into a form that could infect humans. Some
researchers say the virus could make its way to the United States as early
as this fall… by way of wild migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina
Shockley reports:


Wild birds carry all sorts of influenza viruses. Most are of no threat to
people, but the H5N1 strain is different. When it gets into people… it’s
often fatal. Overseas the strain has killed whole farms of poultry such as
chicken and ducks… it’s also infected other types of animals, including
cats.


The H5N1 strain has not been found in the United States, but most
experts say it’s just a matter of time before it is. Some say infected
domestic poultry or smuggled pet birds will likely bring the virus to the
U.S. Others say the virus could come here by way of migrating birds…
that are on the move now.


Steve Schmitt is the lead veterinarian for Michigan’s Department of
Natural Resources. He says birds from Asia… that are possibly infected
with the H5N1 strain are on their way to Alaska right now. There, they
could mingle with birds that will later fly back to the United States.
Schmitt says there are four major flyways over the U.S.… the Pacific,
central, Mississippi, and Atlantic.


“There are birds that will winter in Asia and then come back and nest in
Alaska. If they bring the virus back with them, then they could transmit
that to birds that are in Alaska that come down any of these four major
flyways, and that of course is a big concern, moving it all over the
country.”


Schmitt says most birds that nest in Alaska use the Pacific flyway along
the Pacific coast… to migrate south to the U.S. and Mexico. He says
that means, if the virus were to come to the United States via migratory
birds, the pacific coast would probably be its first stop in the lower 48.
Schmitt says then, birds that use the other flyways could become
infected.


“Most of the migration is north-south, but you do have a few that will
move – jump over to another flyway, and when that happens, the
potential to move the virus to that new flyway happens. Once it’s in a
new flyway, that north-south movement would take over.”


Programs are underway an Alaska and throughout the United States to
test wild birds for various strains of avian influenza, including H5N1.
Experts say waterfowl and shore birds are the most likely carriers of the
dangerous strain, but some say land birds – such as migrating songbirds –
should be tested, too.


(Sound of birds)


Julie Craves studies land birds at the Rouge River Bird Observatory on
the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus. She catches and bands
thousands of wild birds each year during their spring and fall migrations.


This year, Craves will participate in a study that hopes to eventually test
hundreds of thousands of birds across the U.S. and Latin America for
avian flu strains.


“It’s just a great opportunity with people handling birds already, we may
find out some very interesting things about which subtypes are present in
land birds, and if indeed this disease does come to North America, we
will have a head start on seeing what types of migratory pathways are
being used by birds.”


Craves says very little is known about how avian flu moves among land
birds, and experts say each time the virus is transmitted to a different
species it mutates, and each time it mutates, the chances are greater that
it will change into a form that’s easily passed among humans. That’s a
big concern, because such a mutation could lead to a quick spread of
human cases across the globe.


But some say that might never occur… they say the strain might be
unable to mutate into one that’s dangerous to humans.


Arnold Monto is a professor of epidemiology at the University of
Michigan. He says there will be a problem if the strain mutates, but it’s
unlikely people will get the virus from migrating birds.


“I doubt very much whether we’re even gong to see even a handful of
cases in the United States, should avian influenza arrive, and it probably
will, with the migratory birds coming down from Alaska, perhaps next
fall.”


Monto says most of the human transmissions overseas have been from
poultry being raised in the back yard, and not from wild birds. That
means visiting the ducks and geese in the park… and feeding songbirds
in the back yard… are not high-risk activities. Monto says people should
take basic precautions, such as washing hands, to avoid contracting any
sort of flu virus.


Many experts say, on the list of things to worry about, catching a deadly
form of avian influenza is no where near the top of the list of dangers.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

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MIGRATION SEASON BRINGS BIRD FLU WORRIES (Short Version)

  • Julie Craves stands in the area where she sets up mist nets during migration to catch land birds. (Photo by Christina Shockley)

Researchers are tracking a potentially dangerous strain of avian flu in Asia, Europe, and Africa. They say the H5N1 virus could mutate and cause a human pandemic. Experts say domestic poultry or smuggled pet birds could bring the virus into the U.S. Others say it will arrive this fall by way of migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Researchers are tracking a potentially dangerous strain of avian flu in
Asia, Europe, and Africa. They say the H5N1 virus could mutate and
cause a human pandemic. Experts say domestic poultry or smuggled pet
birds could bring the virus into the U.S. Others say it will arrive this fall
by way of migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:


Millions of birds will migrate across the globe along major flyways in
the coming weeks. Some birds from Asia will fly to Alaska to reach
summer nesting sites. If those birds carry the H5N1 strain of avian flu
with them, they could transmit the virus to birds that will later stop in the
United States.


Steve Schmitt is the lead veterinarian for Michigan’s Department of
Natural Resources.


“The pacific flyway far and away has the majority of birds that nest in
Alaska and then move south through the fall into Mexico.”


That means if the virus arrives in the lower 48 states via migratory birds,
it would likely arrive first in a state along the Pacific coast.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

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Sewage Blending Stirs Up Debate

  • Many environmentalists fear the practice of sewage blending would become more routine if a new EPA policy is enacted. (Photo by M. Vasquez)

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering a new policy for sewage treatment plants. Many environmentalists say if the policy is adopted, it will lead to increased water pollution and greater risk to public health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports on the debate over sewage blending:

Transcript

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering a new policy for sewage treatment plants. Many environmentalists say if the policy is adopted, it will lead to increased water pollution and greater risk to public health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports on the debate over sewage blending:


(sound of water in sewer)


Some sanitary sewers are tied in with storm sewers. So when there’s a big rainstorm, or when there’s a fast snowmelt, all that water can inundate some sewage treatment plants. To tackle this problem, some treatment plants have adopted a practice known as “blending.” The excess sewage is re-routed around the slower parts of the treatment plant. The dirty water is then mixed with the water that’s been cleaned. It’s sometimes given a shot of chlorine, and then released into creeks, rivers, and lakes.


Kurt Heise oversees the operation of a sewage treatment plant on the Detroit River. He says the practice of blending is necessary in order to keep the plant from being overwhelmed.


“When you have a wet weather event, an extreme wet weather event, if we were to allow all of that combined water in through the normal process the treatment process would be ruined.”


Sewage blending has been around for a long time. To plant operators, it’s a necessary step in handling large amounts of dirty water. But to some people, blending is not seen as a good option. They want the practice to stop.


Instead, they say, cities should invest in their systems to make sure they can fully treat all the water that comes to the plant. Kurt Heise says, if his plant were required to do this, it wouldn’t make sense economically.


“It would almost result in doubling the size of our plant and spending just untold amounts of dollars for an event only happens a few times a year.”


Sewage treatment plant operators say you have to weigh the costs and the benefits before spending hundreds of millions of dollars on expanding the treatment plants. The decision of whether or not to allow blending has been left up to state and local regulators. But recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has weighed in on the subject. And ever since they suggested new guidelines for allowing blending, environmentalists have been critical of their plan. Mike Shriberg is the Great Lakes advocate for the Public Interest Research Group. It’s an environmental consumer activist organization.


Shriberg says the draft blending policy, the way it’s written now, is too broad. And will allow the practice of blending to become routine.


“Our fear is that when you’ve got a treatment plant that uses blending, they’re never going to upgrade to full treatment sewage. And so if a treatment plant is allowed to blend they’re not going to go up to full treatment capacity they have no incentive to do that anymore. It’s sort of the cheap way out.”


Sewage treatment operators say blending is better than seeing the raw sewage overflow into waterways. And they say it’s better than spending large sums of money to fix a problem that only occurs a few times a year. But critics say the EPA doesn’t have a good handle on how often blending is used, and what kind of health risks are associated with the practice.


Some initial studies have been done on blended sewage and how it might affect public health. Joan Rose is a water microbiologist at Michigan State University. She’s written a report on the health risks associated with blended sewage.


“So what I found was that if people were actually swimming in the water and there was a discharge of a blended sewage upstream, that their risk of getting sick, actually getting sick with a virus or a parasite was about a hundred times greater – when there was a blended discharge as opposed to if the water was fully treated.”


Rose says some of these viruses, such as Hepatitis-A, are highly contagious. At this point, there are no good estimates on how many people get sick from blended sewage each year. It’s never been studied, so the impact of blending on public health is unclear. Ben Grumbles is the Assistant Administrator for water at the EPA. He says the EPA is considering the billions of dollars at stake in expanding the nation’s sewer treatment plants versus the risk to public health.


“What we’re trying to do is to clarify what’s legal and what isn’t legal and to recognize the economic realities that sewage teatment plants face across the country in terms of their infrastructure needs, but foremost and above all what leaves the facility has to meet Clean Water Act permit limits.”


But the Clean Water Act permit limits don’t measure all the viruses, bacteria, and parasites found in blended sewage. And so some environmentalists and scientists say meeting the limits doesn’t necessarily mean protecting public health. Grumbles says officials are still reviewing the tens of thousands of comments they received after releasing the draft blending policy.


He says he doesn’t know what the final rule will look like, or if they’ll issue a rule at all. One thing is likely, if the policy is finalized the way it’s written now, it’s expected that environmental groups will take the EPA to court.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

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Birders’ Passion Helps Scientists

  • The costs of hiring biologists to do a bird count across the U.S. would be astronomical. (photo by Deo Koe)

Every year, tens of thousands of avid birdwatchers wander through frozen fields and marshy swamps. Their job is to record as many birds as they can find in a given area. For birders, it’s a day to enjoy the outdoors while doing what they love most. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, that passion serves another purpose – it helps scientists:

Transcript

Every year, tens of thousands of avid birdwatchers wander through
frozen fields and marshy swamps. Their job is to record as many birds
as they can find in a given area. For birders, it’s a day to enjoy the outdoors
while doing what they love most. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Karen Kelly reports, that passion serves another purpose – it helps scientists:


(sound of footsteps)


Georgina Doe: “There’s five robins right there and there’s three common mergansers,
males…”


Georgina Doe scans the shoreline with her binoculars. Within seconds,
she spots a tiny glimpse of a bird and names it.


She knows them by the way they dive in the air, and the way they thrust
their chests out.


Doe has been scanning the treetops of Carleton Place, Ontario for
more than 30 years. She says she loves the chase and the element of surprise.
And over the years, birding has also been her escape.


She remembers watching a robin build its nest when her grandson
was seriously ill.


“So I used to count the birds every morning before I went off to
the hospital. And then after that, you come back to reality. Somehow a
little bird can just make you feel better.”


Birds have been a part of all of our lives. We might not know their names.
But we can remember holding a baby chick. Or hearing a cardinal on a crisp cold day. But now, many bird species are dwindling. And scientists are
counting on birders like Georgina Doe to help them find out why.


Doe is one of many birders in North America who collects
information for scientists. Jeff Wells works with that information
at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology.


“There’s no way that we could ever pay the tens of thousands of
trained biologists that would be necessary to gather this kind of
information. It’s only possible when we can engage volunteers like
we do in citizen science projects.”


Cornell runs at least a dozen programs that rely on information
from average birders.


There’s the Christmas Bird Count. About 50 thousand people participate.
Another 50 thousand track species during the Great Backyard Bird
Count in February.


The volunteers reported that wood thrushes are disappearing in
many areas. And they’re tracking the effect of the West Nile Virus
on bird populations.


“If a little bird dies, usually it just disappears quickly
and no one ever sees it. So we don’t really know the impact.
And so looking at the differences in the numbers and distribution
might give us some sense of when the disease was rampant in the summer,
whether it killed off enough birds to make a noticeable
difference in our count.”


(sound of quiet footsteps)


Robert Cermak: “You can see it’s about 10 inches high. It’s all fluffed
up right now…”


Birder Robert Cermak tiptoes closer to a barred owl sitting in the
crook of a tree. We’re in Ottawa, Canada’s capital and a city of about a million
people. When it comes to bird counts, this is Cermak’s territory.


“It’s not often that you see a barred owl, any owl, during
the day. They’re usually more secretive. This one is not too
afraid to be out so it’s probably more accustomed to having people
around it, since this is the center of the city.”


Like Georgina Doe, Cermak has been birding for years. But even with
veterans, there’s always concern about their accuracy. Cermak
discovered this firsthand when he reported seeing a rare
harlequin duck last year.


“I sent it in and a few hours later, someone from Cornell –
very politely because it’s a delicate subject to question
someone’s sighting of a rare bird – but they very delicately
indicated that a harlequin duck is extremely unusual in Ontario and
could I please provide a few extra details.”


Cermak sent them a published account of the sighting. He also
gave them the number of a local expert.


Jeff Wells says researchers check their facts carefully. They look
for reports that don’t match others in the surrounding area. Sometimes
an investigation turns up a trained ornithologist… and sometimes not.
But overall, Wells says the information has formed the basis for
hundreds of published studies.


That’s something that makes birders like Robert Cermak and
Georgina Doe feel proud.


“It’s nice because you’re contributing. You’re doing a
lot of hours, it uses a lot of gas, you go around a lot of blocks
but we just think it’s important.”


(sound of Georgina Doe walking)


Georgina Doe says she doesn’t really think of herself as a
scientist. But she’s out there every day, with her ear to the wind. And that’s
what the scientists are counting on.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Romancing the American Chestnut

  • American chestnuts (left) are smaller than Chinese and European chestnuts. The Chinese and European varieties are also resistant to the blight, making the imports more desirable to growers. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one
traditional food has – for the most part – disappeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one traditional food has – for the most part – disapeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(Sound of Nat King Cole singing, “Chestnuts roasing on an open fire…”)


That old chestnut of a song romanticizes roasting chestnuts as a part of the holidays. But a lot of us have never even seen chestnuts, let alone roasted them on an open fire. Chestnuts used to be a major part of the Eastern hardwood forest. There were millions of them. In fact, 25 percent of all the mature trees were chestnuts. But a blight, imported with some Chinese chestnut trees, slowly wiped out the American chestnuts. Now, they’re gone.


Well… almost. Much of the root stock is still alive. Sprouts grow until the blight knocks them back again. A blight only hurts the standing tree where it branches out.


And, in a few isolated pockets in the Midwest, the blight hasn’t reached the trees. A few American chestnuts are alive and growing and some of them are free of the blight. At Nash Nursuries in central Michigan, owner Bill Nash is guiding us through a rare sight… a grove of American chestnuts.


“These are 20 years old and as you can see, they’re fairly good sized. The American chestnut is quite a rapid growing tree. It’s well-suited for our climate, so it doesn’t have any of the problems that some of the hybrids do as far as growing and cultural care you have to take care of them. The Americans, you get them started and they’re pretty much on their own.”


In a few places in Michigan and Wisconsin there are small groves of chestnuts. They’re prized trees. They’re great for shade. The hardwood is rot resistant and makes great furniture and fence posts. And the chestnuts are eaten by humans and wildlife alike. Bill Nash says the tree will be popular again if it ever overcomes the blight that’s hit it so hard.


“The American chestnut will make another big comeback in this country as a yard tree, as a timber tree, as a wildlife tree.”


That part about a wildlife tree is more important than just worrying about the squirrels and bunnies. Chestnuts were an important food source for all kinds of animals.


Andrew Jarosz is a plant biologist at Michigan State University. He says the loss of chestnuts has been hard on wildlife populations.


“Chestnuts shed nuts in a more regular pattern than oaks, which will have what are called mast years – where they’ll have major crops, massive crops one year and very small crops in other years – which means it’s either feast or famine if you’re depending on oaks.”


Since the blight first began hitting American chestnuts about a century ago, researchers have been looking into all kinds of ways to stop it. One way is to cross it with the Chinese chestnut which has a couple of genes that resist the blight. But it takes a long time to breed out the Chinese characteristics from the American chestnuts and still keep the resistant genes.


Another approach is genetic manipulation. Genetically modifying the American chestnut tree to make it disease resistant. Again, work is underway, but it takes a long time. And even after success, it’s likely some people won’t like the idea of releasing a genetically modified organism into the wild.


The final approach worked in Europe when the blight hit there. It seems there’s a naturally occuring virus that kills the blight. It spread naturally in Europe. There are a few groves in Michigan that have naturally acquired the virus and it’s working to keep the blight at bay. Andrew Jarosz is working on the research. He says the trick is figuring out how to get the virus to spread to other trees short of manually spreading it on cankers infected by the blight.


“If we’re literally talking about millions of trees across probably, you know, the eastern third of the country, we obviously can’t treat every canker on every tree. And we need to be able to figure out a way to deploy the virus in a way that it can spread.”


Even with all that hopeful research, it’ll be ten years at least before some practical solutions end up in the forests, and Jarosz believes a couple of centuries before the American chestnut holds the place it once did in the forests.


Bill Nash knows it’ll be a while before there are major changes, but he is optimistic about the American chestnut.


“Oh, I would think the tree has a bright future. There’s enough people working on that, enough programs going on now… So, I would suspect that in the not-too-distant future we should have some of this progress made. You know, Robert Frost in his poem predicted the comeback of the American chestnut, that something would arise to offset that blight. And we’re starting to see that.”


Frost put it this way: “Will the blight end the chestnut? The farmers rather guess not, It keeps smoldering at the roots And sending up new shoots Till another parasite Shall come to end the blight.”


Seems Frost was an optimist too.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Dilemmas for Wastewater Treatment Plants

  • Water contamination from sources that might include some wastewater treatment plants closes some beaches. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Municipal sewer plants are sometimes blamed for high E. coli bacteria counts that close beaches to swimmers. Some cities are working to find better ways to treat the water and put it back into nature. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

Municipal sewer plants are sometimes blamed for high E. coli bacteria counts
that close beaches to swimmers. Some cities are working to find better ways to treat the
water and put it back into nature. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus
reports:


(sound of cars moving along a small street and a few people talking)


A typical summer day by the lake: SUVs pull boats on trailers. People saunter from an
ice cream shop to the city beach. Jet skis and water skiiers slice through the waves.
Carpenters raise trusses on homes being built into the remaining lakefront lots.


Just a few years ago it seemed towns like this were just for loggers and locals. But now
people are flocking to the lakes around the Midwest and staying there. And that’s putting
a strain on local sewer plants.


(sound of machines inside the water treatment plant)


For 40 years, the treated waste water from the Boyne City, Michigan sewer plant has
been released into the big lake it was built on…Lake Charlevoix.


“It’s located right adjacent to a public swimming beach, park, marina and some valuable
waterfront property. We are only a block off the downtown district.”


Plant manager Dan Meads wants to stop mixing the end product with the water where
tourists and the locals swim and play. He tests daily for E. coli bacteria. He
doesn’t want anyone getting sick. But it’s still a concern, and there are other concerns.


In recent years, the United States Geological Survey has reported on new kinds of
contaminants that they’ve found in ground and surface water. The USGS says treated
wastewater from sewer plants can contain hormones from birth control pills, antibiotics,
detergents, fire retardants, and pesticides.


USGS microbiologist Sheridan Haack says the effects of all these compounds are still
unknown. Most are found in tiny quantities, but combined they could cause any number
of chemical reactions.


“There are many different chemical structures and it would be very difficult to state for
all of them what we would actually expect the environmental fate to be and how they
would actually be transported through the environment.”


Haack says the medicines people take don’t disappear. They eventually leave the body
and are flushed down the toilet. Those drugs have been tested for safe human
consumption, but the question is: what happens when those chemicals are mixed in with
industrial waste, accidental spills and nature’s own chemical processes? Haack says they
just might come back around to hurt humans, fish and wildlife.


The Boyne City solution is to build a new wastewater treatment plant two miles from the
beaches up the Boyne River. Officials say contaminants will be diluted by the time they
flow back down into Lake Charlevoix.


(sound of the Boyne River)


Larry Maltby volunteers for a group called “Friends of the Boyne River.” The group
doesn’t like the city’s plan to discharge treated wastewater directly into the river. It wants
them to consider some non-traditional methods. They say the new sewer plant could run
a pipe under a golf course or spray the treated water on farm fields… or let it drain into
wetlands to let nature filter it out.


“It will seep into the soils which are very sandy and gravelly underneath the golf course
and then the filtration through the ground will have a great deal of effect of continuing to
purify that water. Much more so than it would be with a direct deposit, straight into the
surface waters of Michigan.”


Lawyers for the Friends of the Boyne River have appealed to the state dept of
environmental quality and filed a lawsuit.


But wastewater treatment plant manager Dan Meads says the city doesn’t want to please
just one group and end up angering another…


“There isn’t any guarantee that you can satisfy everybody. We think we have the best
option available.”


As municipalities are short on funds and personnel, they don’t want to wait for decades
for the perfect solution. Still, nobody wants any amount of pollution to affect their home
or their recreational area.


Sheridan Haack with the USGS won’t take either side in this dispute. She says not only
are the dangers from contaminants unknown, the best way to deal with them is unknown.


“I am not aware of any consensus in the scientific community on the nature or types of
treatment for this broad range of chemicals.”


In the meantime… communities such as Boyne City have the unenviable task of trying to
dispose of their residents sewage without polluting the beaches, the fishing, and the
environment that brought folks there in the first place.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.

Related Links

New Mosquito Borne Virus Headed This Way?

Experts in infectious diseases believe it might only be a matter of time before a new mosquito-borne virus arrives in the U.S. This one could be more devastating than West Nile. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

Experts in infectious diseases believe it may only be a matter of time
before a new mosquito-borne virus arrives in the U.S. This one could
be more devastating than West Nile. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Tracy Samilton reports:


Rift Valley fever used to be confined to sub-Saharan Africa, but in
2000, there were outbreaks in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Sonja Gerrard is
an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan. She says there’s no
reason Rift Valley fever couldn’t show up here. The disease is
transmitted by mosquitoes, just like West Nile; but unlike West Nile,
many different species of mosquitoes can carry it.


“Most people that get the disease will recover but it does in certain
instances cause encephalitis, which in cases of hemorrhagic fever can
lead to death”


Gerrard says the most devastating effect of Rift Valley fever is on
livestock. Up to 30% of a flock of sheep or cattle can be killed
during outbreaks. Because it’s considered likely the disease will
reach the U.S. sooner or later, she says research on developing a
vaccine should begin now. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m
Tracy Samilton.

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States Fail to Meet Beach Water Quality Deadline

  • Coastal and Great Lakes states vary in their level of compliance with EPA beach water quality standards. (Map courtesy of EPA)

Although you might just be starting to think about the swimming season… the people who monitor beach pollution have been especially busy trying to meet a federal deadline. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports… 21 of 30 coastal and Great Lakes states failed to adopt federal beach health standards by the April deadline:

Transcript

Although you might just be starting to think about the swimming season, the
people who monitor beach pollution have been especially busy trying to meet
a federal deadline. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams
reports… 21 of 30 coastal and Great Lakes states failed to adopt federal
beach health standards by the April deadline:


The 2000 Beach Act requires beach states to put uniform monitoring standards
in place. Only nine states have fully adopted the federal standards,
including Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.


The standards are used to show whether unsafe levels of bacteria or viruses
are in the water. Beaches are often closed after heavy rainstorms cause
sewers to overflow.


The Environmental Protection Agency says it plans to help states move more
quickly to adopt the standards. Doing so ensures continued federal funding.


Laurel O’ Sullivan is with the Lake Michigan Federation. She says the money
granted to beach states is earmarked for improving monitoring programs.


“It’s clear under the Beach Act that if they do not have these standards in
place, that the EPA does have the authority to withhold money, so these
states are jeopardizing their ability to receive much needed federal
funding.”


O’Sullivan says paperwork backlogs have slowed some states down. But she
says in several cases, states that missed the deadline are likely to adopt
the standards later this year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

West Nile Virus Marches West

  • Zoos have helped public health officials monitor the spread of the West Nile virus. Besides concerns about human health, zoos are worried about the birds in their care.

Cooler weather sweeping the Great Lakes region means the end of the mosquito season. It also means a temporary halt to the spread of West Nile virus in the area. But this past summer the virus made headway into the region much faster than experts had expected. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Cooler weather sweeping the Great Lakes region means the end of the mosquito season. It also means a temporary halt to the spread of West Nile virus in the area. But, this past summer the virus made headway into the region much faster than experts had expected. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


It’s extremely rare that West Nile virus causes severe illness in humans. But it does happen. While most people won’t even realize they’re infected, about one fourth of those infected will exhibit some mild symptoms. However, the virus can cause encephalitis, which is an inflammation of the brain. In very rare cases it can be fatal.


Zoos have been helpful in monitoring the spread of the disease. It was first identified here in the U.S. by the Bronx zoo in the fall of 1999 after crows started dying in the New York area. Since then, zoos across the U-S have kept watch on their birds and animals. In part to protect them and in part to help health officials track the progress of the virus.


Scientists thought the virus would slowly make its way to neighboring states. But, it’s spread much more quickly than expected. It wasn’t supposed to hit states as far west as Illinois and Wisconsin until sometime next year. But it made it even farther west with reports of it in Missouri.


Researchers have learned the virus is carried by birds such as crows, blue jays, hawks and Canada geese. Dominic Travis is a veterinary epidemiologist at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. He says since West Nile virus infects birds, experts suggested it would spread southward from New York. That’s because many birds, including some infected with the virus would travel south for the winter. Others, though, said it could spread west.


“And, the westward race won. We were fairly surprised that it came past the Michigan and western Ohio area, but we’ve been prepared because we started this surveillance system and started working with the CDC and USDA and everybody last spring for this specific eventuality.”


Travis says zoos across the Midwest started monitoring for West Nile virus this past spring. They worked with local health officials to determine if the disease had spread to birds in the area.


While birds carry the disease, mosquitoes spread it. So, officials at he Lincoln Park Zoo have been trapping mosquitoes and drawing blood from its animals, testing for West Nile virus. They’ve also been working to reduce the chance that animals will be bitten by mosquitoes. Again. Dominic Travis.


“The two strategies are try and limit the mosquito and if you can’t limit the mosquito, limit the contact.”


Most zoos are hesitant to use insecticides to kill the mosquitoes. So, instead, they try to eliminate places where they can breed. Basically, that’s anywhere a puddle of water stands for more than four days. Travis says that helps meet strategy number one, limiting the mosquito.


“So, a) if you don’t have mosquitoes, the risk is fairly low, and b) if you can’t get rid of all your mosquitoes, then you want to stop mosquitoes from biting the animals and so you do things to keep them separate. And those are –depending on the birds, the size, the situation, the zoo– those are keeping them in during mosquito feeding hours or some people have mosquito nets that they’re incorporating and so on and so forth.”


Zoos are especially worried because they’re responsible for some very rare birds, in some cases the last of a species.


At the Saint Louis Zoo, a huge outdoor flight cage and several other outdoor cages make up the zoo’s bird garden. Zookeeper Frank Fischer says outside bird exhibits are at highest risk.


“We’re making sure that, trying to make sure that none of our birds, even the birds in the outside exhibits here in the bird garden don’t contract any of that disease, say, from crows or our blue jays or birds of that type.”


While birds are most at risk of infection, they’re not the only species hit by the virus. In the U.S., as many as a dozen people have died after being bitten by a mosquito carrying West Nile virus. And even more horses have died. People and horses are considered incidental victims. That is, they don’t carry the disease and they don’t spread it. But they can be infected. A veterinarian in southwestern Illinois, Don Van Walleghen, says he’s gotten a lot of calls from worried customers, asking about West Nile virus.


“Basically, they want to know, is it here? Is it a concern for me?”


And because it’s such a recent phenomenon Van Walleghen’s customers have a lot of other questions. They bring in dead birds, wondering if their dog or cat that was playing with the bird might be infected. So far, aside from horses and people, there have been no reports of other animals, livestock or pets, being infected by West Nile virus, or spreading it.


“In humans, if you are a human bitten by a mosquito that had this disease, you could not transmit it to your kids or to anything else. So, at least that limits the disease from even being thought of as any kind of epidemic.”


But it is spreading. Experts hope that weather conditions next year are not good for mosquito production. But even a relatively normal to dry season as this past year was has not seemed to slow the spread of West Nile virus. If next year is wetter, experts say the virus could spread farther and infection rates could rise. That’s why health and agriculture experts are reminding people to work toward reducing the mosquito population next year. They recommend everything from keeping roof gutters unclogged to prevent standing water, to landscaping yards and driveways to eliminate puddles. Anything that will slow mosquito production next year will hopefully slow the spread of the West Nile virus. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Horse Disease Spreading?

A form of encephalitis may be killing horses in the northern Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner explains:

Transcript

A form of Encephalitis may be killing horses in the Northern Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner reports.


Twenty-eight horses with likely cases of “Eastern Equine Encephalitis” have died in Wisconsin in the past few weeks. A national lab has confirmed the disease in one of the horses. It is transmitted by infected mosquitoes. Health officials are concerned about the possible outbreak, because mosquitoes can also transfer the disease to humans where it causes flu-like symptoms — in some cases it can even kill people. So researchers in Minnesota and Wisconsin are trapping mosquitoes to test for the virus. In the meantime, Wisconsin state veterinarian Clarence Siroky says residents in several counties are scrambling to get their horses vaccinated.


“What we’re going to see is less and less horses involved but that doesn’t mean there’s less of a problem out there.”


That’s because, while there is a vaccine for horses, there’s none for humans.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Jo Wagner.