Irrigation Water Holds Legionnaire’s Bacteria : Health: Organism causing sometimes fatal disease is found in treated water used in Mile Square Park. Scientists are unsure if people are endangered.

Bacteria linked to the cause of Legionnaire’s disease have been detected in treated waste water used to irrigate local public properties including Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley, according to Orange County Sanitation Districts research.

Sanitation officials, however, said the study had not determined whether people could be infected by the bacteria found in water samples taken from the Orange County Water District and the Irvine Ranch Water District.

Dr. Hildy Meyers, the county’s epidemiologist, said Monday that she only recently became aware of the study and could not determine whether there was any immediate cause for alarm. So far this year, only one case of the disease has been reported in Orange County.

“The type of testing performed doesn’t tell whether the organism is alive or not,” Meyers said. “We’ll be following through to see what (the sanitation agency) plans to do. We don’t know whether they have reached a level of concern.”

The disease, which can be fatal, was discovered nearly two decades ago when it struck an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. Local health officials said the legionella bacteria grow in water and can be spread through the air by large air-conditioning systems, decorative fountains or other water systems.

The bacteria cause a pneumonia-like illness that sometimes includes muscle aches and coughing. In its most advanced stages, it can cause respiratory failure and death.

Results of the two-year research project involving local sanitation agency scientists, which was partially funded by the National Water Research Institute, were to be presented this week to the American Society of Microbiologists convention in Las Vegas. The study has been the subject of much debate in Orange County, specifically at the sanitation agency, where much of the research has been performed.

The research controversy is yet another dispute in the sanitation agency, whose various operations are the subject separate inquiries by the California Occupational Health and Safety administration, the Orange County district attorney’s office and an internal sanitation agency investigation of safety codes at the agency’s Huntington Beach treatment plant.

Cal/OSHA officials have been conducting a criminal investigation of a February flash fire at the Huntington Beach plant where two contractors were killed. And prosecutors have been reviewing claims that sanitation officials had accepted gifts from contractors doing business with the agency.

Addressing the recent bacteria discoveries, Margaret H. Nellor, the sanitation agency’s acting director of technical services, said the new research report contained “numerous errors” and should be labeled as containing only “preliminary findings.”

Meanwhile, co-authors of the study, including sanitation agency scientist Carol Palmer, have reportedly described Nellor’s criticisms as an attempt to “censor” the document and alter research findings, according to sanitation officials.

Palmer could not be reached for comment Monday, but Nellor said Palmer and others have made their concerns known to her and others in the sanitation agency.

The study’s most critical shortcoming, Nellor said, was that the bacteria detected had not been tested for the possibility of human infection.

“I do not think there is any evidence to suggest a public danger,” Nellor said Monday. “But some people who will be looking at this study are not going to be scientists or engineers and could misinterpret the findings. It’s not being truthful.”

In a May 17 memo to the sanitation agency’s environmental sciences laboratory, Nellor said that she was “astounded and appalled that anyone representing this agency would be so cavalier in their approach as to the preciseness or accuracy” of such information.

In addition to the study’s failure to address the possibility for infection, Nellor said the researchers did not accurately describe the water treatment process at the Orange County Water District and the Irvine Ranch Water District or the chemical dosages used in the treatment of reclaimed water.

Water district officials could not be reached for comment.