Mecklenburg commissioners to vote on Whitewater Center regulation on Oct. 18

Mecklenburg County commissioners on Tuesday scheduled an Oct. 18 vote on the county’s first regulation of the U.S. National Whitewater Center, where an Ohio visitor contracted a fatal infection this summer.

The nonprofit-run center is not now regulated, but tests its 12 millions of gallons of water for fecal bacteria under the lease terms of its 1,100-acre site with Mecklenburg County.

That hands-off status appeared likely to change after the death of Lauren Seitz, 18, who contracted a rare brain infection caused by the amoeba Naegleria fowleri after visiting the center on June 8.

The center suspended whitewater rafting in June after the amoeba was detected in its water. Whitewater activities resumed in August after the center drained and cleaned its whitewater channels and installed a new chlorination system.

The rule county commissioners will consider in two weeks is intended to foster “an environment that is not hospitable to potentially pathogenic microorganisms” to protect public health.

It was written with advice from federal and state health experts and after two months of county monitoring of the center since whitewater channels reopened.

The proposed rule requires an annual operating permit from the county health department that can be suspended if the center doesn’t meet water-quality or safety standards. It also gives the health director ability to declare conditions a public nuisance that could trigger its shutdown.

“These are teeth,” commissioners Chair Trevor Fuller said of the rule. County officials said the Whitewater Center has agreed to comply with it.

The rule requires daily tests of water quality and organic material in the water. It also approves chlorine as a disinfectant to kill disease-carrying pathogens, followed by a secondary disinfection method such as the ultraviolet light that previously was the center’s primary disinfection system.

The center has said it now has three overlapping systems to kill or disable pathogens: chlorine injection system, ultraviolet and ozone oxidation.

Commissioner Vilma Leake again questioned the costs to Mecklenburg County of policing the Whitewater Center since Seitz’ death -- $109,000, county manager Dena Diorio said -- in light of the $6 million in subsidies the county gave the once-struggling center.

“They were out there not to protect the company but to protect our citizens,” commissioner Jim Puckett said.

This story was originally published October 4, 2016 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Mecklenburg commissioners to vote on Whitewater Center regulation on Oct. 18."