Ebola is here, Dallas, Texas

[NJmike PE]

Did someone say my name?

 

[Dleg]

^ from what I've read, ebola doesn't live long in wastewater.

It lives long enough that it will be concern for sewer workers. Even on surfaces, it can last "a few hours", and there are documented studies that it can last much longer in bulk wastes (feces, vomit). This likely means that the virus stays viable all the way to the treatment plant.

(technically we should not say that the virus "lives" since it is not a living thing. More accurate to say that it stays viable or active)

 

[Dleg]

Alright, I did a little more looking into this, since this is partially my job after all, and here is some more info (and my commentary):

FIRST COMMENT: I should not have had to go digging for this information! It should be available somewhere - CDC, EPA, one of the professional organizations.... but no, I had to Google it and dig through a lot of unrelated information to find it.

From the CDC interim guidance on environmental infection control for ebola in hospitals:

5. Is it safe for Ebola patients to use the bathroom?
Yes. Sanitary sewers may be used for the safe disposal of patient waste. Additionally, sewage handling processes (e.g., anaerobic digestion, composting, and disinfection) in the United States are designed to inactivate infectious agents.

And from CDC interim guidance on ebola lab wastes:

For equipment that drains directly into the sewer system, the United States sanitary sewer system handling processes (e.g., anaerobic digestion, composting, disinfection) are designed to safely inactivate infectious agents.

Yeah but ... those treatment processes occur after miles of gravity sewer collection system and various processes that could expose workers or even the public, such as construction operations or the aerosolization from pumps and the aerators at wastewater treatment plants... The specific processes they list show that the person writing this is not an engineer... disinfection occurs at the end of the treatment process, and not even at every plant. Digestion occurs with only a portion of the activated sludge, at the tail end of treatment, after the sewage is several days to weeks old (but again not even with every plant). Composting even later, and only at selected facilities. Please, at least get an engineer to review this, or better yet, write it! Reach out to the WEF or ASCE, and ask them to put their committees to work on it - you will get a much better answer than from some environmental health specialist at the CDC.

In fact, let's see if either ASCE or WEF has anything to say about it:

ASCE: nothing. WEF: nothing. AWWA: nothing.

EPA? Also nothing that I could find.

The only things I can find on the subject are news articles (not a good source of engineering information) and forum posts (maybe even less so). Here's something recent from the Wall Street Journal, again hanging its hat on the CDC guidance above (and retracting the Atlanta / Emory denial story):

Dr. Ribner said someone from the county sewage-management department told him the department would disconnect Emory from the sewage system if the hospital planned to discharge waste that contained Ebola virus into the sewers, despite guidance from the CDC that sanitary sewers can safely accommodate patient waste.

Dr. Ribner said Emory disinfected all liquid waste from the patients with bleach before discharging it into the sewage system.

A spokesman for the DeKalb County Department of Watershed Management said: “At no point did we say we would disconnect the hospital from public sewage lines. Early on, there was a preliminary call between our watershed director and the CDC regarding protocols for planning and community-awareness purposes.”

And also note that the hospital took the additional step of disinfecting with bleach before discharge - how? Did they give the patient a bottle of bleach to pour in the toilet prior to flushing? There's no other way, as far as I know, to ensure that would happen in an otherwise large and interconnected hospital sewer system. Plus, this indicates that they were not comfortable following the CDC guidelines.

From the internet forum world, self-identified "experts" on Reddit responded to questions, which were then also picked up by the news media, such as this one:

Could this spread through a sewer system?

The answer is no. This is not going to happen. Enveloped viruses like Ebola are not hardy enough to survive in the sewer system. In addition to their fragility, there is a tremendous dilution factor. The available evidence supports the idea that infection is only by direct contact with body fluids of an infected person.

OK - that actually sounds like a reasonable and reassuring answer, but Reddit is not the CDC and this could just be some crackpot making stuff up.

The bottom line is that the only official guidance on this is a one-liner from the CDC that appears to have been written by someone who is not very familiar with wastewater systems - which means maybe not even an engineer. We also have (probably) scientists who know something about viruses saying that the virus will not survive for long in a sewer environment. Fine. But it will survive for some time - otherwise you could not get sick from being in contact with an infected person's bodily fluids. So clearly there must be some point at which the sewage is not safe. Anyone can catch any number of viral diseases from sewage, like hepatitis - I am not even allowed to work around sewage until I get all my hepatitis A and B vaccinations. So why is ebola in sewage not considered a problem?

I can come up with only two conclusions from all of this: either this has not been thought through very thoroughly, or it has not been adequately explained. Either way, by now there ought to be some sort of easy to find, public guidance for sewer utilities on the risks and procedures related to accepting wastes from ebola treatment facilities. But there is not.

 

[matt267 PE]

Dleg, you are correct that EPA has not been very helpful with providing guidelines for ebola and Wastewater. I found this article yesterday that seems to answer the question directly: http://www.tpomag.com/online_exclusives/2014/10/ebola_information_released_for_water_and_wastewater_utilities

 

[Road Guy]

A second nurse in Texas has now been infected.

Lots of people at the CDC have been making hundreds of thousands of dollars for the last several decades hopefully they will begin earning their money soon

 

[NJmike PE]

you know another thought on this whole pretreatment of the hospital WW is IF it is still active one it gets into the municipal system, it is now possible for animals, to become infected with it. To my knowledge there will be little way for anyone to monitor there movements.

 

[matt267 PE]

While Ebola doesn't appear to be waterborne, I quite surprised that hospitals don't already have a pretreatment process to deactivate all/most of the viruses that are waterborne in their waste stream. I suspect cost is the reason it's not "standard" practice.

 

[NJmike PE]

I found this article from 2006.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CD0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwaponline.com%2Fjwh%2F004%2F0405%2F0040405.pdf&ei=7Gk-VNCSCLOQsQT_uIK4CQ&usg=AFQjCNG1koHc7qavftpayiuP6La3SATQVA&sig2=bKRIzJpnbCzoIcS_sOOnSg&bvm=bv.77412846,d.cWc

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

 

[NJmike PE]

and now it will begin to spread like wild fire....

http://newjersey.news12.com/news/texas-dept-2nd-person-tests-positive-for-ebola-1.9505247

 

[matt267 PE]

^ well isn't that exciting.

 

[NJmike PE]

Time to move again

 

[snickerd3]

that's actually shocking that all people that came in contact with him weren't automatically put on 21 day monitoring/ quarantine from their last contact with him. For her to have taken a flight is just pure negligence and stupidity.

 

[NJmike PE]

that's actually shocking that all people that came in contact with him weren't automatically put on 21 day monitoring/ quarantine from their last contact with him. For her to have taken a flight is just pure negligence and stupidity.

agreed, but a blunder like this was bound to happen.

EDIT: as a matter of fact, this is probably when the idiot conspiracy theorists (OZ and such) will comment that the government created this situation to be able to implement martial law, take away our civil liberties (guns, etc) and force us all into a Socialistic community. I stress idiots.

 

[matt267 PE]

that's actually shocking that all people that came in contact with him weren't automatically put on 21 day monitoring/ quarantine from their last contact with him. For her to have taken a flight is just pure negligence and stupidity.

agreed, but a blunder like this was bound to happen.

It would appear this country's response has been one blunder after another.

 

[Road Guy]

There's a big difference between choosing to be fat,smoke, drink and our pussy government refusing to take action on this(restrict flights)...

I hope all US aid workers refuse to treat these people... Push them in the basement and let them die (the ones that come here with the disease)

 

[snickerd3]

^those aide workers can be die hard helpers, putting others ahead of themselves. It's what they live for life be damned.

 

[NJmike PE]

 

[DanHalen]

that's actually shocking that all people that came in contact with him weren't automatically put on 21 day monitoring/ quarantine from their last contact with him. For her to have taken a flight is just pure negligence and stupidity.

agreed, but a blunder like this was bound to happen.

EDIT: as a matter of fact, this is probably when the idiot conspiracy theorists (OZ and such) will comment that the government created this situation to be able to implement martial law, take away our civil liberties (guns, etc) and force us all into a Socialistic community. I stress idiots.

 

[NJmike PE]

but wait, there's more...

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1018543-nina-pham-boyfriend-ebola-nurse-boyfriend-admitted-to-hospital-with-ebola-like-symptoms/