Maybe ick factor will deter swimmers in city creeks

AFTER TAKING a dip in Devil's Pool at Wissahickon Creek one afternoon last week, Trevor Broom chatted about what a nice respite from a hot summer day the pond can be.

"Are you gonna jump in with us now?" Broom, 27, asked a Daily News reporter with a grin. "The water's nice."

Well, not exactly.

Experts say the water in the Wissahickon, Pennypack and many other city creeks is wastewater - essentially, water that carried sewage before being treated at wastewater plants and sent back into the creeks.

"Wissahickon, during summer months, about 90 percent of that flow is treated wastewater," said Philadelphia Water Department spokeswoman Joanne Dahme.

Dahme said two of the more common bugs you can catch in that type of water are giardiasis and cryptosporidiosis - both of which, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, can cause diarrhea and other flulike symptoms.

In case those nasty illnesses aren't deterrence enough from swimming, Dahme said that occasionally, when heavy rains hit, the sewage plants that drain into the city's creeks can be overwhelmed - which means it's possible at times that water contaminated with raw sewage can find its way into the creeks.

Dahme said swimmers should also keep in mind that any bacteria on the ground - say, from animal feces - can be picked up by rainwater and run into the waterways.

"As soon as . . . that rainwater hits the street, it is picking up any kind of pollutant on the street, on land - dog waste, all that bacteria," she said. "Then you also have sewer pipes carrying a lot of that contaminated runoff into the water stream."

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