We need to start thinking more about drinking water on the Great Lakes in the face of the Climate Crisis.

Flickr: Heavy weather over Lake Ontario near Grimbsy

A new Great Lakes study finds that severe weather can help predict illness from drinking water.

February 7 2022 - If you follow our work, you probably know that swimming after heavy rainfall can cause recreational water illness. This is why we follow the 48 hour rule to avoid coming into contact with harmful contaminants washed into waterways by storm runoff and combined sewer overflows.

The correlation between recreational water illness and rainfall is so well documented, it’s not uncommon to find signs at beaches warning against swimming for two days after a storm.

Now, a recent study by the IJC has found that weather events can predict instances of gastrointestinal illness from drinking treated Great Lakes drinking water in addition to swimming in it.

The study discovered patterns in six years of digitized public health and weather data from Canada and the US, finding a statistically significant increase in illness after rainfall throughout the year—even during the winter when people (or at least most people) are not swimming.

But before you stock up on bottled water, know that this study’s purpose was to examine the feasibility of using weather to predict risks to public health on a binational scale.

As the climate crisis continues to cause more frequent and heavy rain, we must find ways to track the human health effects of coming into contact with contaminated water, whether we are drinking, swimming, or fishing in it. We must find out what datasets public health and monitoring groups are collecting on a binational scale that can be compared on an ‘apples to apples’ basis.

At Swim Drink Fish, collecting and sharing water health data is an integral part of our work.

Monitoring the quality of source water (that is, the water directly in our waterbodies before it may be treated for drinking) is crucial because not all water treatment plants are created equal. The quality of the water before it is treated affects how clean it will be after being treated, not to mention the difference in quality of a fast moving river versus a lake.

That’s where you come in. By supporting our work, either by volunteering to sample water or by donating to keep our programs running, you are not only protecting public health, but also helping contribute to the data we need to face the climate crisis.

Read the IJC’s report summary here.

For more information, you can contact: 

Allison Voglesong Zejnati Allison.VoglesongZejnati@ijc.org

Jennifer Boehme Jennifer.Boehme@ijc.org