Indiana Warnings Or Dangers Tips by Toughluck

Surface water is great fun, think before you leap

Natural lakes and streams offer a variety of recreational opportunties. But they all come with a risk Surface waters like Lake Michigan are the home of many varities of fish. It's a great place (apparently) to go fishing. But it's also the place where the fish leave their body waste, including dead bodies when they die. But the visible stuff is not the real problem. It's the invisible stuff.

Like many places, there are many large and small towns. Each has a complex sanitary system to treat human waste from the homes, business' and factories along the shore. Again. it remains out of the local waters, (lake & streams).

It remains, mostly, out of the lakes until it rains. Town sewer systems often are unable to handle the waste and rain water and there is a 'combined sewage overflow', CSO for short. In this case, the waste is sent out into the nearby stream.

If you're healthy and the water looks okay, swimming is not a big risk. If you have a open wound/cut or have low resistence to disease, you might want to stay away.