WILKES-BARRE — With the holidays rapidly approaching, I ask if you all remember how, in December 1983, beavers, not Grinches, almost stole Christmas.
If you are old enough to remember the giardiasis crisis and its ill effects, then you know what I’m talking about.
To refresh your memory, on Dec. 23, 1983, an alert was sent out to many Luzerne County consumers, informing them that the water flowing from our taps was not safe to drink. The alert went on to say that a microscopic organism — called the Giardia cyst — had contaminated what had always been believed to be a pristine water supply.
We were told that to kill this cyst, water coming from the tap had to be boiled before it was consumed.
More than 250,000 people were affected. Bottled water sales skyrocketed, as did the sale of home water filtration systems.
Before that, hundreds of people came down with giardiasis — an intestinal illness that causes prolonged diarrhea, nausea, cramps and weakness.
Yuck, right?
The local water at that time was supplied by the locally owned company, Pennsylvania Gas and Water Co. The Giardia-infected water supply was traced to the seepage of sewage into the Spring Brook Reservoir in Lackawanna County.
The story goes that beavers had consumed the contaminated water and concentrated the cysts internally and passed the cyst-laden water into the company’s distribution system.
It was told to us that with not much more treatment than a sprinkling of chlorine, the cysts were able to reach unsuspecting customers — a reported 437 of them became sick with Giardiasis.
A colleague of mine at the time, Mike McGlynn, put the situation into perspective as only he could.
In the aftermath of the local public waterborne giardiasis outbreak in the mid-1980s, McGlynn wrote in his column about PG&W and its corporate failure to provide good, clean, safe water to its customers. Profits were little on the water side of the company, so things like watershed maintenance and safety precautions amounted to little more than “the chlorine will get it” philosophy of the company and its board of directors.
So in January 1984, McGlynn, in typical style, said it was time to determine if our water should be publicly owned.
“Sure, the water system could end up being guarded by a bunch of goofballs and political hacks,” he wrote. “But they would, at least, be goofballs accountable to the public, rather than to stockholders who care more about profit than pollution.”
And then he ended the column in classic McGlynn style:
“If you can’t provide clean water, you shouldn’t be in the business of providing clean water.”
Profound logic.
The giardiasis crisis was described by environmentalists as a “close call” back in 1983.
Jim Chester was the director of the regional office of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (DER) — which evolved into the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
I interviewed Chester and I left there very concerned.
First, Mr. Chester said this:
“Thank God it was only giardiasis.”
Gulp!
Chester indicated that there were far more devastating diseases that could have been borne of a neglected and ill-maintained water system.
Back in those days, the water company — Pennsylvania Gas & Water Co. — told me that chlorine would take care of any serious problems. That never did sit well with DER’s Chester.
“I could tell the water company that there was a (expletive deleted) rhinoceros in the watershed and they would tell me the chlorine would get it,” Chester fumed during one interview.
The entire episode culminated in PG&W being mandated to build water filtration plants to assure another outbreak, or one even more serious, would not occur.
And today’s steward of our water system, Pennsylvania American Water Co., has done a terrific job doing just that.
But back in 1983, the former water company’s image was as tainted as its water.
Back then, then-DER spokesman Mark Carmon didn’t hesitate when asked what the giardiasis crisis meant to the mindset of the general public. Would people ever feel safe to drink water out of the tap again?
“You will always find some people who will never drink from the tap again because of what they endured back then,” Carmon said.
I’m sure that’s true, but my water is crystal clear and delicious.
It took a crisis to get that “pristine” system straightened out, but it worked.
No more “close calls.”