Corpses in drinking water: Not a public health concern

There have been two stories recently about dead bodies in a water supply. And in both cases, it turns out that - according to the experts - it's not actually a health risk. (It's just really really gross.)

Top of the news charts right now is the story of thousands of dead pigs which were found floating in the river that supplies water to Shanghai, which is the largest city in the world. The pigs were dumped by a farmer upstream when his herd contracted a pig virus.

(If I were a Shanghai resident, I would be more disturbed by learning of the existence of a pig farm upstream from my water source. Pig farm runoff is… bad.)

Chinese authorities have tested the water and claim that there is nothing wrong with it. And luckily the pig virus in question is not one that can be contracted by humans. Authorities elsewhere in the world agree that, assuming Shanghai is maintaining a base level of drinking water sanitation and chlorination, a few thousand extra rotting pig carcasses should not pose a health problem.

The second story is smaller in scale, but perhaps more gruesome. Guests at the Cecil hotel in Los Angeles had been complaining about low water pressure, and foul-smelling water that sometimes came out of the tap looking black and tarry. A maintenance worker investigated and found the body of a Canadian tourist had been stuffed into one of the hotel's rooftop water cisterns.

County health officials announced that the water, having been chlorinated, would have "killed any bacteria" in the water tank.

It seems difficult to fathom that a dead body in your water supply could not pose a health risk, but that is what they are telling us. I suppose we should all be grateful for the miracle that is widespread public water chlorination. But personally, these stories make me glad that my home is on a well water system!

Main image courtesy Flickr/waltarrr