HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio (WKRC) – Hamilton County Public Health is warning people and their pets to temporarily avoid portions of two local rivers after untreated sewage began flowing into the Whitewater River from Indiana.<\/p>\n
According to an Aug. 19 alert from the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, an unknown amount of untreated municipal wastewater, or raw sewage, is being released into the Whitewater River from a wastewater treatment plant in Connersville, Indiana.<\/p>\n
Recent flooding knocked the facility offline, and repairs are being planned, officials said.<\/p>\n
The Whitewater River flows through western Hamilton County before emptying into the Great Miami River, which eventually flows into the Ohio River.<\/p>\n
Because of potential downstream water contamination, health officials recommend temporarily avoiding recreational activities in the Whitewater River and the Great Miami River south of its confluence with the Whitewater.<\/p>\n
That includes swimming, boating and playing in or near the potentially contaminated water.<\/p>\n
Connersville is approximately 50 miles northwest of Hamilton County, and officials said the distance reduces the potential impact by the time the sewage reaches the area. However, exposure could still cause illness in people and pets.<\/p>\n
Contaminated recreational water can contain germs such as E. coli and Cryptosporidium, which can cause diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea and vomiting.<\/p>\n
Health officials are also urging parents to closely monitor children and pets, who may be more likely to swallow contaminated water.<\/p>\n
Anyone who comes into contact with the affected water should thoroughly wash their hands, clothing and footwear.<\/p>\n
Officials did not immediately say when the advisory is expected to be lifted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio (WKRC) – Hamilton County Public Health is warning people and their pets to temporarily avoid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-820511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}