Does anyone here have thoughts on the recent events at the WWC & how it may affect it's viability?  It seems they have a major PR hurdle to overcome & the possibility of a huge lawsuit resulting from potential negligence.  Worst case scenario is they will not be able to recover from the resulting ramifications & it'll close down permanently.  I've been riding there since '95 & would hate to see it close down. 


Please allow me to express my sincere condolences to the family & friends of the deceased.

ludey wrote on 06/27/16 at 4:31pm:


Key phrase right there

The only way they can be guilty is in the court of public opinion as far as I'm concerned.  The death of the young girl in this case is certainly tragic and my heart goes out to her family, but the bacteria in question are present in warm water bodies and do not cause death just from contact or swallowing according to the articles I've read.  Being in water when it's forced up the nose can be fatal unfortunately.  But if a lawyer is going to try that battle he might as well fight Duke Energy and anyone else responsible for the local lakes around here and possibly even swimming pool owners.  It seems the WWC is doing everything humanly possible to keep the water quality as best it can.

July 4th weekend is a huge money maker for the WWC! Hopefully they can reopen in time!

It stinks that the one in a million million million chance happened there...

I'm curious,  if you have a killer organism in your water, what happens when you dump the pond into the Catawba River. Does the bad thing go away or just relocate?

Water channels will not be open for the 4th celebration.  In fact I doubt there will be any activity on that channel for at least a month (IMO you won't see people on the water this summer).  Yesterday they were power washing down all of the rocks around the top pond where the rafts embark.  I don't know their official plans but my guess is they will have the entire pool scrubbed, sterialized and disinfected 

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I doubt the center did anything with intent.  I believe the organism is very common in most all freshwater including your tap water... which is where WWC gets 99% of their water.... from the tap.

They will probably need to update their protocol to include additional chemical filtration and possibly regular water refresh intervals... something like refreshing 20% of the water per month during the summer season.  I think this would require additional permits to drain into the catawba river more than their current permit allows. 

I was out there yesterday and it was a SAD sight to see.  There were less than 100 cars in the parking lot... mostly bikers.

Perhaps the bright side will be less expensive beer to incentivize people to come back and enjoy a near death experience.

Woods Rider wrote on 06/27/16 at 7:05pm:


I have no doubt there will be a lawsuit.  I was just saying that I didn't think it would have merit IF the reports of what the WWC is doing to monitor water quality are true.

It's incredible that people swim in much dirtier water sources every day and don't get infected by this organism.

I find it interesting that this orgasm seemed to thrive in conditions where water filtration and treatment procedures are being used.

I wonder it's possible that in some cases certain water treatment procedures can cause this organism to flourish in water where it already exists by removing natural barriers to it's proliferation? Don't fool with mother nature? I don't think anyone could have foreseen that this water could be more dangerous than the Catawba or local area lakes. And I can't think of one case.

Clearly WWC has done everything possible to treat and filter the water. If there is any fault, it would the failure to test for this orgasm. I suspect that will change. Too early to tell whether this will satisfy the public.

News this morning said 6-8 weeks

Here's a nice quote from a WCNC article:

Two former Whitewater Center employees told NBC Charlotte that none of this surprises them. One of them said the water was dirty, and in fact, some workers got sick because of it. "We called it river rot," the unidentified former employee said, "It's where your foot gets wet and if you have cuts, they never heal and eventually gets infected from whatever."

As mtbchk mentioned, and now I've heard from a couple other sources, the filtration system required frequent maintenance and wasn't running all the time. USNWC leaders aren't talking to media. What they need is transparency and openness, not going into turtle mode.