Six Flags closes water park on news of illness
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Mark Johnson
Six Flags Great America's year-old water park, Hurricane Harbor, was closed this weekend after two Wisconsin youths were sickened with the parasite Cryptosporidium and two more were sick and waiting to learn if they have the same illness.
All of the youths, one from Appleton, the others from Door County, had visited the Gurnee, Ill., attraction on Aug. 7.
"What's unknown is whether they came to the park infected with Cryptosporidium or whether they got it here," said Mark Pfister, associate director of environmental health for the Lake County, Ill., Health Department.
The water-borne parasite spreads the disease, cryptosporidiosis, marked by diarrhea, stomach cramps and fever. The symptoms appear after the parasite has been ingested and has incubated for about a week.
Six Flags Great America officials learned of the Wisconsin cases when one of the families phoned the park. The park was closed voluntarily on Friday for precautionary water treatment; no evidence of the parasite has been found at Hurricane Harbor.
In a statement, the park said: "There is no evidence linking this to our water park, and no evidence linking the illness of a small group of friends to our pools. We have received no reports or complaints from our thousands of other guests or from the dozens of lifeguards who are in the pools every hour of every operating day."
After closing Hurricane Harbor, an attraction that opened in 2005 and attracts 7,000 people a day, Six Flags Great America began using a process called hyperchlorination on the park's 2.6 million gallons of water.
The water is subject to levels of chlorine five to 10 times higher than normal for more than eight hours to inactivate any Cryptosporidium that might be present.
Pfister said that after hyperchlorinating the water, health officials will take water samples to a lab for testing.
"Hurricane Harbor could reopen this afternoon as long as the tests come back clear with no Cryptosporidium," he said.
In the meantime, Pfister reminded the public that people who have diarrhea should drink plenty of water but should not swim in pools or lakes until 14 days after their illness has gone away. The Health Department declined to release the names of the youths who were sickened, citing the health privacy law.
Jim Taylor, a Six Flags Great America spokesman, said that people wishing to check whether Hurricane Harbor has reopened may call the park at (847) 249-1776.
In 1993, Milwaukee's water supply was contaminated with Cryptosporidium, killing 100 people and sickening more than 400,000 others. In 2003, a community swimming pool in Stanley, Wis., was closed for cleaning after eight people were sickened by Cryptosporidium.
