Health Dangers Arise From Pumping Of Sewage Into Deep Sea
From Ocean Update September 1999 Vol. 4, No. 9
Paul R. Epstein, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School. Tel (617) 432-0493
An outbreak of cholera on the southern Coast of Bangladesh in 1992 may presage the risks posed to developed and less-developed countries alike from deep-sea dumping of human sewage, according to some researchers. Scientists have noted that the 1992 outbreak was accompanied by an upwelling that brought deep-sea water to the surface near the Bangledeshi coast. In recent years, researchers have discovered a variety of pathogenic microbes, many usually found only in human feces, at unexpected depths of the ocean. Marine scientist D. Jay Grimes of the University of Southern Mississippi says that a variety of viruses that infect the human gastrointestinal tract – including poliovirus and rotavirus – have been identified in ocean water samples taken below 1,0000 meters (3,300 feet). In the late 1980’s, Sagar M. Goyal of the University of Minnesota isolated gut bacteria from samples obtained as sewage-sludge dumping sites more than 170 kilometers offshore from New York City, 30 months after the sites were closed to dumping. The bacteria were resistant to several antibiotics, showing that they originated from humans who were taking the drugs.
Although the scenario by which such microbes could reach the surface is unclear, Dr. Paul Epstein of the Harvard School of Medicine has expressed concern about the presence of pathogens in the deep ocean, particularly the given proliferation of projects such as miles long pipelines to take sewage out to sea.
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