Don’t drink the water

I’m not referring to Cairo – the water here tastes like you are drinking from a swimming pool due to all the chlorine, but it is SAFE.

I’m talking about the multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art New Campus.  Just out on e-mail:

Water Quality Issue on AUC New Campus
As part of AUC’s routine monitoring and testing of its domestic water supply, a bacteria (protozoa) has been discovered in the water system, which needs to be removed.  This bacteria may present gastrointestinal type issues. Until testing determines that the bacteria has been removed, please do not drink the tap water on the New Cairo Campus. Boiled tap water may be safely used for purposes of making tea and coffee.
A team from facilities and operations, environmental health and safety, and our medical clinic are working together to effectively resolve this issue in as timely a fashion as possible. We will keep you posted on our progress in correcting this issue.
I should be (and to some extent AM) glad that they are monitoring the situation, however I find it unsettling that we are discovering significant HEALTH issues on an actively functioning and (may I remind you) BRAND NEW campus.  This is not an issue of old plumbing, which I would have expected on the downtown campus.

Also – as a biologist – I would FAIL, even a 100-level, student of  mine who called a BACTERIA a protozoan.

From Wikipedia (the wealth of all modern knowledge): (from Greek ?????? proton “first” and ??? zoa “animals”; singular protozoon) are microorganisms classified as unicellular eukaryotes.[1] While there is no exact definition of the term “protozoan”, most scientists use the word to refer to a unicellular heterotrophic protist, such as an amoeba or a ciliate.
So – what is in the water?  Don’t know, but I’m sticking with the bottled stuff.  At least there I’ll only find mold spores and regular, old, everyday DIRT.  The things that my  system is USED TO!!!

1 comment

  1. This used to happen all the time in Jersey City… not the calling it the wrong term thing, but the contaminated water. Which is why I still drink the bottled stuff today, even when we’re being reminded of the environmental impact of plastic.

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