Blood Worms Invade Okla. Town’s Water Supply - East Idaho News
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Blood Worms Invade Okla. Town’s Water Supply

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N 082913 BloodWorms?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1377795681491KHBS/KHOG(COLCORD, Okla.) — The discovery of blood worms in a small Oklahoma town’s water supply has forced a “do not drink” order as well as a school closure through Labor Day.

“Right now there’s still a precautionary water use advisory, so still encouraging people not to use the water for anything except bathing, not to use it for food preparation, brushing teeth, drinking,” Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) spokeswoman Erin Hatfield told ABC News on Thursday.

The blood worms, also known as red worms, were discovered earlier this week in the filtering system of Colcord, Okla., population 800, about 80 miles east of Tulsa.

The worms range from a half-inch to an inch long and have no known health effects, according to Hatfield.

“They weren’t coming out of people’s faucets,” Hatfield said. “They were found in the distribution system, originally at a convenience store that was having their filters serviced. And they were found in the filter.”

“The chlorine won’t kill them, the bleach won’t kill them. You can take the worms out of the filter system and put them in a straight cup of bleach and leave them in there for about four hours, and they still won’t die,” Cody Gibby, Colcord water commissioner and vice mayor, told KHBS-TV.

The Cherokee Nation donated cases of bottled water to Colcord Schools and the town’s emergency management office has been distributing water to residents.

“The DEQ will be onsite sometime this week to inspect the facility and try to ascertain how this may have happened and hopefully to find a way to prevent it from happening again,” Hatfield said.

Hatfield said the situation is “very unusual” for Oklahoma and believes the only other case was 20 or 30 years ago. She said the worms are more common in the Southeast part of the U.S.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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