When coliform hits the fan

Our newsroom received several emailed news releases in the past week from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Because of this delivery of information, we were aware of World Atlatl Day at Graham Cave. We knew that we could tour the heirloom gardens at Deutschheim State Historic Site. We knew about the latest exhibit at the Missouri State Museum and all the fun adventures we could enjoy on National Trails Day.

As I sit at my computer on a Thursday afternoon, I can say we have received at least 12 communications from our Department of Natural Resources within the previous week. And not one of them was about E. coli having contaminated a water supply in the Fruitland area.

In recent months I've written at length about communication issues involving our state. The governor, for instance, doesn't use his public cellphone, nor email, to communicate.

I've written about how public employees such as teachers are afraid to speak their minds, at least publicly, on important matters such as curriculum for fear of discipline or termination. I have pointed out that many public bodies have mandated that all communications be handled through PR teams of professional spinmasters. It's all part of a bigger effort made by government bodies and leaders to control messages and highlight positive things they do so those in power can remain there and so that these agencies can justify their use of tax dollars.

Last Wednesday the state served up another glaring example of where it places its priorities. I was scrolling my Facebook feed before supper when I saw a post from a friend about a boil water alert being issued in parts of Cape Girardeau and Perry County.

I immediately (yes, with my cellphone) forwarded the message to our newsroom staffers to get the information so we could distribute it. This is a public safety matter, and we needed to let everyone know.

So our staff went to work. Should be an easy thing, right? To confirm a boil water alert? From a state agency? About a public safety matter?

We checked DNR's website for a posted news release. Nothing there.

We visited its Facebook and Twitter feeds. Nothing there.

We checked the Cape Girardeau County website, as well as Perry County's. Nothing.

We Googled it, only to find a link to KFVS' reporting of the story.

That evening, DNR offices were closed, so a reporter made a phone call to a number listed for emergency purposes. A man who answered the phone told the reporter she needed to speak to the Poplar Bluff DNR to get the details -- when they opened the next morning.

The next morning, the Poplar Bluff DNR office told our reporter she needed to call headquarters and gave her a number to ... wait for it ... the communications department. The reporter left a voice mail, and by 3:30 p.m. the day following the boil water alert, we reached a real person who could give us details about the contamination.

We eventually found the basic information of the alert the night that it happened. One editor, after four clicks on the DNR website, finally found a map with boil water alerts. At about the same time, another reporter found a list by typing the terms "Missouri DNR boil order."

After a few hours, we were able to get the basic news out.

After the coliform settled, I reached out to a DNR spokesman to find out about the department's communication policy. And I asked to know all ways in which it communicated this public health risk to the public.

DNR followed its policy.

The spokesperson sent me a document from 2010 that states the policies for public dissemination of boil water alerts. It says the public water system is responsible for communications regarding contaminated water. But apparently DNR went above and beyond, sending out news releases to the two types of media mandated in the policy: TV and broadcast media.

DNR didn't have to send out anything, according to its policy. I assume the public water system coordinated with DNR to meet the policy's notification requirement.

The newspaper was excluded. KFVS12 and River Radio were notified. That release excluded several other radio stations, including our local public radio outlet.

Again, the document was dated 2010. By 2010, our newspaper had been on the Internet for more than a decade. Newspapers all over the country had for years dominated web traffic for news. By 2010, our newspaper had already generated an army of news consumers through our text alert platform, the first media outlet to do so in our region.

DNR's public notice policy only requires notification on E. coli contamination to "appropriate broadcast media, such as radio and television."

Clearly, by excluding newspapers, which can deliver news immediately just as effectively as other media, DNR's policy is outdated by at least 10 years.

But this bothers me more than anything: On the same day that the folks in the Fruitland area were supposed to be boiling their water, we received two other emails from the department. The subject lines read:

• Old-time folk arts program at Current River State Park May 30
• Birds over Baker at Sam A. Baker State Park May 30

Is tourism more important than health? DNR reports that "fecal coliforms and E. coli are bacteria whose presence indicates that the water may be contaminated with human or animal wastes. Microbes in these wastes can cause short-term effects, such as diarrhea, cramps, nausea, headaches or other symptoms. They may pose a special health risk for infants, young children, some of the elderly, and people with severely compromised immune systems."

In trying to follow up to find out when/if the alert was lifted, an editor on Saturday called the water supply district, but nobody answered. The first number had an automatic voice prompt that said no voice mail had been set up. Our editor reached a man at the second number, who said he knew nothing about the boil order and we needed to call a man named Peewee on the first number. When we told the man no voice mail had been set up, he told us we'd just have to keep calling until Peewee picked up.

Our editor called the Southeast Region DNR office at Poplar Bluff. No one answered. We called the emergency DNR number, and when we reached a person there, he said he'd call around to see whether he could get the information.

About 30 minutes later we got an email from, you guessed it, a DNR spokesperson, saying the boil water alert was still in effect and the earliest it could be lifted was Tuesday.

By this time, KFVS had reported the boil water alert had been lifted; when we told the spokesperson this, we were informed that the TV report was incorrect.

A few minutes later, just as our editor was about to report online that the boil water alert was indeed still in effect, the spokesperson emailed him again and apologized for the confusion, but, yes, the alert had been lifted.

An official DNR announcement was attached to the email.

Bob Miller is editor of the Southeast Missourian.