View on WKYT News.

By Ben Beddoes
Published: Aug. 1, 2024 at 3:44 PM EDT

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT)—One of the headlines of the 2024 Paris Olympics is the water quality affecting open-water swimming events. This may make you wonder how safe Kentucky’s waters are for swimming.

Steve Evans is from the Kentucky Water Research Institute at the University of Kentucky. He says that in Kentucky, the amount of e-coli in the water determines how healthy it is for swimming.

“It is a fecal indicator bacteria which means although it doesn’t represent all different types of diseases that can be contracted through contact with a water body like norovirus, rotavirus, salmonella, giardia, there’s a number of contaminants. But it’s easily culturable and can be generated at the lab. You get the data back the next day,” said Evans.

Anna Hoover, with the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, says swimming in contaminated water can pose many health risks.

“Certainly, the main thing we worry about when we think about swimming in contaminated waters is diarrheal disease. Things like e-coli, giardia, cryptosporidium, those kinds of pathogens and others can contribute to diarrheal disease which would show up later,” said Hoover.

With recent heavy rains, the risk of contaminated water goes up.

“You may see overflowing manholes that can go into water bodies, you also get runoff so you get contamination from livestock, manure piles that may be close to streams, agricultural sources in that way. Pet waste is a common source of e-coli. So you get runoff from the land surfaces from it as well,” said Evans.

To view where swimming advisories have been issued in your area, click here.

Copyright 2024 WKYT. All rights reserved.