LCC staff regularly tests Pollmiller for toxins

Pollmiller beach

We only test Pollmiller as that is our only swimming beach. There's no swimming allowed at any other pond or lake.”

- Heather Huebner, Lee County Conservation

LEE COUNTY - With the Naegleria fowleri amoeba the cause of a Missouri man's death last week, attention has been brought on Iowa's swimming holes.
The man very likely contracted the amoeba after swimming in water at Lake of Three Fires in Taylor County in southwest Iowa on the Missouri/Iowa border.
Missouri health officials aren't releasing the name of the man, but the national attention the death has caused has people looking closer at where they are swimming.
Heather Huebner, director at Lee County Conservation said Lee County has only one public swimming area and that's Pollmiller Beach in West Point. She said swimming at other public ponds and lakes in the county including Wilson Lake, Heron Bend, and Chatfield Park is probited.
Huebner said the conservation staff tests Pollmiller Beach weekly.
"We only test Pollmiller as that is our only swimming beach. There's no swimming allowed at any other pond or lake," she said.
"We test weekly through the Beach Monitoring Program and we send the water samples up to the Iowa Hygienic Lab in Coraliville, IA. Clint Oldfield and Jack Davis, our Park Ranger staff, are the ones who do our testing and send the samples off. Once the lab receives the results, they email the results to Clint."
Infection from the amoeba is very rare and Centers for Disease Control information on the amoeba has it at very low risk of infection. Infection causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) which has been shown to be fatal in 97% of the 154 cases ever reported in the United States. The amoeba actually feeds on bacteria, but releases toxins that the body's immune system gears up to fight, which causes a swelling in the brain. The only path to infection is through the olfactory nerve in the nose.
According to a report from National Public Radio, Iowa and Missouri health department officials are working together to determine if any other water sources locally have a presence of the amoeba.
Iowa DNR officials have closed Lake of Three Fires to swimming and have issued 12 other warnings at state beaches. However, none of those 12 is due to the amoeba. Those others are due to high levels of e.coli or microcystin in the water. Lake Geode in Danville is on the microcystin warning list with one other lake. Microcystin is a harmful toxin produced by blue-green algae blooms.