Native officers, water consultants warning towards swimming in flood-impacted waters

AUSTIN, Texas — Water is making its method down the Highland Lakes system as floodgates at Wirtz, Starcke, and Tom Miller dams have been opened by the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA).

While the lakes are filling up from the Hill Country floods—Lake Travis is projected to fill for the primary time since 2019—the floodgates are letting extra down the river than simply water.

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“As we see runoff occur in our area, there’s going to be a lot of debris that will be a part of the flows that come into the system,” mentioned John Hofmann, Executive Vice President of Water on the LCRA. “It generally also has an elevated amount of bacteria associated with those flows.”

Dr. Desmar Walkes, Medical Director at Austin Public Health, says that micro organism may cause a myriad of well being issues for individuals who could swim in or by chance ingest flood-impacted water.

“You can develop GI illness or stomach illness, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting. Exposure to the eyes can cause eye infections,” she mentioned. “You can develop swimmer’s ear, ear infections, and if you have open wounds, you can develop infections of those wounds… you may actually sustain injury from debris that’s in the water, cuts, bruises, and the like.”

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According to Dr. Keisuke Ikehata, an affiliate professor of civil engineering at Texas State University, runoff may also wash sediments and contaminants akin to oil, grease, and paint into the river, however “the more immediate health concern for swimmers is generally exposure to microorganisms that may cause gastrointestinal illness.”

“For the Colorado River/LCRA reservoir system, dam releases are part of flood management and are not necessarily a source of contamination. The larger water-quality concern is the runoff entering waterways from the surrounding watershed,” he wrote.

How do I do know when it is secure to swim?

“It takes anywhere between a few days to several weeks, depending on the extent of the flooding and extent of the pollution, for bodies of water to clarify enough for safe swimming,” mentioned Ikehata. “Make sure to check or reach out to the authorities who monitor the water quality. They do the microbial testing, and they can possibly tell if the water is safe.”

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has a Surface Water Quality Segment Viewer for the general public to test the standard of our bodies of water that TCEQ screens.

CBS Austin reached out to the TCEQ, however no consultant was out there for remark.