Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/25/dead-body-in-reservoir-for-a-month-results-in-boil-water-advisory.html
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And in that month how many other animals have died in that water?
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Probably several, but there’s a big difference in mass between a rotting frog and a rotting human.
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It’s March in Rochester, NY. That reservoir is at 35F* right now, and it has been warming up for most of the last month. Fresh, umm, meat will keep for a long time at that kind of temperatures. All sorts of things are starting to come to the surface around now.
All surface water like this is filtered, deionized, UV sterilized, and usually chlorinated to boot, the boiling thing may well be more for them upping the chlorine levels for a while than for killing something pathenogenic. Still, better to be safe, etc.
Now ask where the fish do their thing, that’s always good for a laugh.
*Internet. So handy.
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This wasn’t on my list of reasons to have a reverse osmosis water filter, but it is now.
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One reason it’s prudent to take extra precautions when a human corpse is involved is because they are full of pathogens that have evolved specifically to infect human beings. Also why fertilizing your garden with cow manure isn’t nearly as dangerous as fertilizing it with human poop.
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An excuse for some Tom Lehrer lyrics:
One morning in a fit of pique
Sing rickety tickety tin
One morning in a fit of pique
She drowned her father in the creek
The water tasted bad for a week
And we had to make do with gin, with gin
We had to make do with gin
She weighted her brother down with stones
Sing rickety tickety tin
She weighted her brother down with stones
And sent him off to Davey Jones
All they ever found were some bones
And occasional pieces of skin, of skin
Occasional pieces of skin.
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I’m surprised the metropolitan area wasn’t required to do daily testing on the water. If nothing else, at the intake from that reservoir to the treatment tank(s), so as to know the correct balance of chemicals to add.
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I’m sure they could neutralize the corpse-water by adding anti-bodies
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But bodies immediately start releasing fecal bacteria, so…
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Soup!
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Good thing I get all my water through diet Mountain Dew.
But don’t they clean the water from the reservoir before sending it out?
And, if a body can get in there how hard is it to put something in that could hurt people?
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The municipal water department says “over 1,500 tests from locations throughout the system each month”; but if there are tighter specifics I’m having trouble finding them. I assume that sampling at the treatment plant and major exit points is most aggressive, with assorted spot testing elsewhere, but that’s pure conjecture; with the exception of one item that seems like it might be relevant:
The Agreement requires the City to conduct routine Cryptosporidium monitoring (twice monthly) from both Highland and Cobbs Hill reservoirs. During 2022, as part of our routine sampling plan, forty eight (48) samples for Cryptosporidium or Giardia oocysts were collected, twenty four at both Highland Reservoir and Cobbs Hill. No Cryptosporidium or Giardia oocysts were recovered for any samples collected at Cobbs Hill or Highland Reservoir.
On the minus side; they apparently don’t need to test the reservoir that often. On the plus side; the dead guy would have overlapped with at least one test, and it doesn’t sound like he was the object of an urgent search spurred on by alarming numbers; which suggests that his presence wasn’t actually that dangerous, though obviously distasteful.
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There’s an Anglo-Saxon story about a guy who got drunk and fell in the mead vat at the thanes victory feast-this feast hall was very fancy and had two floors, with a balcony above the vats.
The following discussion was about whether or not to drink the mead. Some thought it would honor the fallen warrior, others thought his clothes would make the mead taste bad. No idea on what the final decision was.
Perhaps they chose to broach the admiral?
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I vaguely remember reading a story about a person going missing in an apartment building, and it became a big mystery about what happened to them, only to discover the remains up in the water tower on top of the building, and had been poisoning the water supply for quite some time.
But at this point, I have no idea if that was an actual news story, or something fictional. 
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