Rio’s Olympic water rife with sewage virus

In some tests, disease-causing viruses measured up to 1.7 million times the level of what would be considered hazardous on a Southern California beach.

The Brazilian government has a lot of work ahead of it if it hopes to have its venues ready by 2016.

Sailors and rowers were not anxious about getting sick during the Rio Olympics next year despite reports that waters to be used for events have pollution levels equivalent to raw sewage, competitors said on Thursday.

As a result, he said, “We will pay close attention to transportation and logistics” – fairly innocuous factors considering all the environmental, civil, and infrastructure challenges plaguing Rio de Janeiro.

This is the eighth time this year that the area has been deemed unfit. “I’ve had high temperatures and problems with my stomach”, he said.

The majority of sewage in Brazil goes untreated, making extreme water pollution common in the country. Currently, tests evaluate bacteria, but not viruses.

These ailments could knock an athlete out for days, potentially curtailing Olympics dreams and the years of hard training behind them.

“Our medical experts who we count on for their expertise in the subject, they made a few recommendations, and we still follow those recommendations”, he said. But the government does not test for viruses.

None of the 2016 Olympic venues in Rio de Janeiro are safe for swimming or boating.

“We’ve had reassurance from the World Health Organization and others that there is no significant risk to athlete health”, said Budgett.

“What you have there is basically raw sewage”, John Griffith, a marine biologist at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project said after examining the AP tests, according to the report. Many prime beaches have been deserted because of the dirty waters, surfs thick with putrid sludge, and even the Olympic lake, Rodrigo de Freitas, is also littered with rotting fish.

Athletes, coaches and sport administrators contacted by the AP had difficulty judging the risk presented in the AP’s research, and did not alter plans to compete in upcoming test events.

“It’s all the water from the toilets and the showers and whatever people put down their sinks, all mixed up, and it’s going out into the beach waters”, he says. While California has again surpassed the statewide target of a 25% reduction in water use (conservation was at 29% in May), 16 water districts failed to meet their conservation standards by 15 percentage points or more.

But the area that was ruled unfit by the Rio environmental agency for swimming earlier this week was based levels of fecal coliforms, which are single-celled organisms that live in the intestines of humans and animals.

Adams, however, explained that US Sailing has been working with the United States Olympic Committee to conduct its own tests on the water quality of Guanabara Bay, and they’ve found the results satisfactory.