Bacteria Found In Kaiser Water E. Coli, Fecal Coliform May Have Sickened Some Workers At Mead

Contaminated drinking water at Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp.’s Mead smelter may have made some workers sick.

On Wednesday, the state Department of Health ordered Kaiser to boil water for 980 workers after lab tests had found fecal coliform and E. coli bacteria.

“We regard this seriously - that’s why we put out the boil-water order,” said Tom Wells of the Health Department.

The E. coli germ found at Kaiser Mead is not the same as the variant in under-cooked hamburger that caused people to sicken and die in 1993, said Paul Stepak, Spokane County epidemiologist.

“The vast majority of E. coli forms don’t make humans ill, but it’s an indicator there may be other bad bugs in the water,” Stepak said.

Kaiser is providing bottled water to its workers while testing continues, said company spokeswoman Susan Ashe.

“We want to take every precaution,” she said.

Meanwhile, a Mead worker said several co-workers had become ill this week.

“People had nausea, flulike symptoms and diarrhea,” said the worker, who asked not to be identified.

About a half-dozen people reported to the Mead dispensary complaining of flulike symptoms, Ashe said.

Starting Thursday, Kaiser began to chlorinate its drinking water to kill the rest of the bacteria, she said.

The contamination was detected June 13, but written notices warning workers not to drink the water weren’t posted until the state took action this week.

“They knew for eight days they had a problem before they told us,” the worker complained.

Additional tests Monday showed the bacteria in four of 10 samples, said Karen Crouse, the Spokane County Health District’s laboratory director.

The source of the contamination is still a mystery, officials said Thursday.

Kaiser draws water from the Spokane aquifer and stores it in a reservoir. Small animals could have crawled into the reservoir piping and caused the problems, Wells said.

“The place you find E. coli is in the gut of warmblooded animals,” he said.

But Crouse said a source inside the plant’s plumbing is more likely.

“If the contamination were in the reservoir, we’d see it throughout all the samples,” she said.

Kaiser has been reluctant to add chlorine to the reservoir because the state Department of Ecology doesn’t want any chlorinated discharges into Peone Creek because of dangers to fish, Wells said.

But now, Kaiser plans to de-chlorinate the drinking water before it enters the creek, Ashe said.

, DataTimes