Cryptosporidium - is anyone having to boil their water?

I am not complacent Syracute, but I don’t fling accusations without evidence. Investigations are taking place and in the meantime the public are being given appropriate advice and bottled water.

On BBC News they showed a local man who was providing bottled water at his own expense as South West Water had not set up water stations. They think the problem is due to a leaky pipe on farmland close to a reservoir.

My understanding is that water in reservoirs is not infrequently contaminated, including with cryptosporidium, and that the reservoir water is filtered and treated through a water treatment plant before it is piped into our water supply. The filter in the local water treatment plant that South West Water are now identifying as failed should have filtered out the cryptosporidium but didn’t. Have I understood correctly?

Syracute

Germanshepherdsmum

The fact is, wwm, Ofwat has not been given the powers you mention. And nor are they likely to be.

Funny isn’t it, but Labour have been in power since the water industry was privatised in 1989 but still it remains privatised. Nobody mentions that.

Why are you being so complacent GSM ? This is a serious problem ! No time for a wait and see while people are being taken ill. Complacency is a huge problem here in Britain.

Complacency is a huge problem here in Britain.

I thought you said you live in America Syracute 🤔

Apologies if I misunderstood.

Casdon

My understanding is that water in reservoirs is not infrequently contaminated, including with cryptosporidium, and that the reservoir water is filtered and treated through a water treatment plant before it is piped into our water supply. The filter in the local water treatment plant that South West Water are now identifying as failed should have filtered out the cryptosporidium but didn’t. Have I understood correctly?

Does it get filtered out or killed by chlorine? It's a very tiny organism.

It’s filtered, chlorine doesn’t kill it, at least according to what I read.

This was where I read it.
corporate.dwrcymru.com/-/media/project/files/page-documents/corporate/library/leaflets-and-publications/customer-information-sheets/information-on-cryptosporidium.ashx

M0nica

Last week R4's programme, The Briefing Room, looked at the water industry, in particular Thames Water.

If you want to know the full horror of how the owners of water companies have stripped £billions in dividends out of these companies and not invested a penny. I recommend a listen.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001yxl5

A post of mine from an earlier page.I can only re-recommend this programme after the news about possible resignations from the Board of Directos.

Learn how much has been stripped out of the company, where all new investment, that could have been met from income has instead been paid for by borrowing and building up debt. Not a penny of owners money has been invested in the company in 32 years.

M0nica

M0nica

Last week R4's programme, The Briefing Room, looked at the water industry, in particular Thames Water.

If you want to know the full horror of how the owners of water companies have stripped £billions in dividends out of these companies and not invested a penny. I recommend a listen.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001yxl5

A post of mine from an earlier page.I can only re-recommend this programme after the news about possible resignations from the Board of Directos.

Learn how much has been stripped out of the company, where all new investment, that could have been met from income has instead been paid for by borrowing and building up debt. Not a penny of owners money has been invested in the company in 32 years.

That is exactly the issue, throughout the whole country.

Water is the basic necessity for all of life and to treat it as a commodity for prophet is one of the most shortsighted things we as a country have ever done.

We are behaving as if we know the price of water but not its value.

farm waste should be dealt with and re-used on site, it should never go into the water supply, either directly or indirectly. Animal waste is to blame

The water supply cannot cope with the rapidly increasing human population

karmalady

farm waste should be dealt with and re-used on site, it should never go into the water supply, either directly or indirectly. Animal waste is to blame

The water supply cannot cope with the rapidly increasing human population

There is plenty of water - it is the lack of capturing facilities that is an issue, because no money has been spent in the decaying infrastructure.

Just read a post on Facebook, yes I know, and have asked for details of who compiled the figures, but apparently something happened in 2016, that made it easier to flout previously adhered to regulations, hence the rapid deterioration in water quality, with no jeopardy for the polluters.

fancythat

Can we say for 100% that it wouldnt have happened under public ownership?

No, of course not.

We seen to forget that sewerage was regularly pumped into the sea and rivers.

We live near the coast and as children we'd be at the beach to count how many sanitary pads we could count. At the time we didn't know what they were obviously. But mum was always telling us not to touch them!

Some of my family were affected by Cryptosporidium during a Nile cruise a few years ago, in fact the whole ship were very sick including the crew.
All the cruise guests were reimbursed with all the cruise costs. I heard that passengers were witnessing very poor food hygiene when loading provisions at port stops - meat carcasses were left out in the sun for hours on end and the river water was used for washing up apparently.

Louella12

fancythat

Can we say for 100% that it wouldnt have happened under public ownership?

No, of course not.

We seen to forget that sewerage was regularly pumped into the sea and rivers.

We live near the coast and as children we'd be at the beach to count how many sanitary pads we could count. At the time we didn't know what they were obviously. But mum was always telling us not to touch them!

I have no idea how old you are, Louella12, but we had seen big improvements in water quality since I was a child as a result of joining the EU and conforming to regulations to stop pollution of the seas and inland waterways. It seems to be no coincidence that since the Brexit vote water quality has rapidly gone downhill again...011

MaizieD

Louella12

fancythat

Can we say for 100% that it wouldnt have happened under public ownership?

No, of course not.

We seen to forget that sewerage was regularly pumped into the sea and rivers.

We live near the coast and as children we'd be at the beach to count how many sanitary pads we could count. At the time we didn't know what they were obviously. But mum was always telling us not to touch them!

I have no idea how old you are, Louella12, but we had seen big improvements in water quality since I was a child as a result of joining the EU and conforming to regulations to stop pollution of the seas and inland waterways. It seems to be no coincidence that since the Brexit vote water quality has rapidly gone downhill again...011

Yes, our rivers were largely in excellent condition, there were instances of the law being broken, but you could swim relatively safely.

Pre-EU law, some of our rivers including the Thames were dead.

The UK was branded “the dirty man of Europe” when it joined the EU in the 1970s, partly due to the polluted state of its beaches. Since then, significant improvements have been made, and in 2016 96.5% of UK bathing waters (609 out of 631 sites) passed EU standards—announced as the “best on record” by the Government.

In a nutshell, the predominant Brexit concern for bathing waters is that without the threat of large fines for breaching EU requirements and an independent EU regulator keeping tabs on progress, the impetus for improvement may be lost, standards may slip, and in the worst case scenario the UK could return to being the “dirty man of Europe”.

These concerns are countered with the Government’s commitment that it will “keep working to improve our environment” along with the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill which aims to incorporate EU law into domestic UK law “wherever practical”. MPs have been assured by the Department for Exiting the EU that the Government will “ensure we maintain at least the [bathing water] standards that we have maintained in the past”. It’s worth remembering here that the UK was never 100% compliant with EU requirements and had the discretion to de-designate sites, thereby taking them out of EU requirements.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/what-does-brexit-mean-for-the-uks-beaches/

The latest I've heard is that it's been around since late April in Brixham and is now in Paignton too. South West Water have identified a leaking valve as a possible cause. Researching it on the Internet you need to boil water at a rolling boil for 3 minutes to kill it. It's not killed by sea water, bleach or chlorine in a swimming pool, or by disinfectant. Britax filters don't stop it either. It needs temperature above 50C to kill it.
Yes I'm paranoid about it as we live around 10 miles from Paignton where its spread to. A few confirmed cases where I live too on our local site. I'm boiling water in a big saucepan on the hob for our dogs and us. Our dogs have only just recovered from guiardia from drinking muddy puddle water so catching this would probably make them very ill. On local news the 'experts' say it can last up to a month and you can still be infectious to others for weeks after. Incubation is 2-10 days.
Feel desperately sorry for those who have businesses in Brixham. It looked like a ghost town on TV yesterday.
SWW ignored reports of positive cases for weeks before Public Health got involved. They are now saying hundreds of cases as figures are rising rapidly.

That sounds desperate, sazzl. I hope you continue to be safe. I'm sure all posters on here will be hoping the same for you.

And thank you, Callistemon, for finding Commons Library paper. How very prescient they were. I seem to recall leave voters pooh poohing any suggestions that leaving the EU might lead to lower standards generally. Once we leave, we were told, and are no longer dictated to by those unelected Brussels bereaucrats we can legislate for much better environmental standards. 😡

I suspect that if the UK still manages to attract tourists in the future they will all come clutching massive bottles of water because, knowing how information gets mangled, they will believe that all our drinking water will make them ill.. I think the bottled water suppliers will be rubbing their hands in glee and stepping up production....

PS my ipad is insisting on spelling 'bureau' incorrectly. 😱

sazz1 I really feel for you and I keep thinking about how the poor people who are already ill are coping with this.

And now it is one of the top stories in the Guardian online. Bad news for tourism and very worrying for the ordinary people affected.

How long ago was it that we had the thread about sewage in the boat race water?

I'm sorry to hear that sazzl, especially after the illness your dogs suffered recently. We too are SWW customers and they really are a disgrace, despite being the most expensive supplier nationwide I believe.
Interestingly I am in France now, and no one exits the supermarket with a trolley of less than 6 big bottles of water, and no one I know drinks from the tap. I have just paid 2€ 20cents for 6 x 1 litre bottles.

We had this a few years go in the Fylde area where services are operated by United Utilities. It went on for a few weeks and while they were quick to offer/pay compensation (£55 I think) there was no bottled water distribution and supplies quickly ran out at local supermarkets some of whom raised their prices considerably. Were were never told what the cause of the contamination was at a local water tower. We were fortunate in that we didn't contract any of the nasty illnesses that many others suffered from