Bacterial Contamination in Rinse Tanks

from the June, 2009 issue of Undercurrent

 

 

Recreational divers typically rinse their equipment in “communal” tanks filled with fresh water after completing dives. Often all the equipment (wetsuits, booties, fins, BCDs, regulators with mouthpieces and masks) is rinsed in common tanks. In some facilities, a separate tank is provided for rinsing regulators. Masks are often rinsed and even stored in a common tank on boats before a dive.

 

Few studies have addressed the possibility that these communal rinse tanks may harbor pathogens and transmit disease. We first reported that communal rinse tanks at a dive facility in Roatan indeed contained significant levels of many types of microorganisms (Microbe, December 2007, p. 577). However, because that dive facility did not allow us to sample the water entering rinse tanks, we were unable to determine if the microorganisms originated from the water used to fill tanks or from equipment that was rinsed in the tanks.

 

Recently, a report documented the spread of conjunctivitis among divers using two dive boats off of Fiji’s Vitu Levu Island (Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine, 2008 vol. 35, p. 169). Among 29 divers, 14 cases (almost 50 percent) of conjunctivitis were ultimately documented. The pattern by which conjunctivitis was spread among divers and between boats was consistent with the outbreak arising from the divemaster, a Fijian resident, who reported having an eye infection prior to the outbreak and who placed his own mask in the communal mask container (Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine, 2008 vol. 35, p. 169). This study established that disease can be transmitted among scuba divers via communal tanks. (Read our interview with the study’s author in our September 2008 issue.)

 

In October 2007, we investigated the extent to which bacteria were introduced into communal rinse tanks, via water used to fill tanks and via dive equipment rinsed in them, and whether cleaning a rinse tank with bleach once a day reduced the subsequent bacterial population. A dive facility in Bonaire cooperated in this study but wished not to be identified.

 

To read more, click the following link: http://undercurrent.org/UCnow/articles/BacterialContamination200906.shtml

 

 

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