STILLWATER — For several years Denise Mooney’s children have gotten small red rashes after swimming near her family's property in Saratoga Lake here and there, but two weeks ago it was the worst she’s ever seen.
After her kids swam in the lake, they began getting red welts that were very itchy.
“This year, it’s relentless,” she said. “I mean, anytime we go in the lake, we come out covered in rashes. Our kids are, they're being affected the most at this point. They're coming out basically with welts on their legs. So we can't even go in the water anymore at this point, just for health and safety risk.”
She said it’s swimmer's itch. Swimmer's itch is a rash that occurs when tiny parasites burrow into someone's skin whileswimming or wading in freshwater lakes and ponds but can happen in saltwater, too, according to Mayo Clinic. The parasites don’t survive and do die, but symptoms include the itchy rash that looks like pimples or blisters.
“The parasites are found in some animals that live near ponds and lakes, including geese, ducks and muskrats,” the Mayo Clinic states. “The parasites’ eggs get into the water through the animals’ waste. When the young parasites hatch, they live and grow in a type of snail that lives in shallow water. The snails then release the parasites into the water, where they can infect humans.”
It cannot spread from human to human though.
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Mooney, whose family has had property on Fathom Drive, not far from Brown’s Beach, since the 1980, said other neighbors have raised similar concerns to her.
“One of my friends was just in the lake and two weeks ago he contacted me and he's been giving his daughter oatmeal baths because she has open wounds on her face due to it because she went underwater a lot,” Mooney said. “So she has open wounds on her face because she's continuously scratching at them.”
Mooney said the lake has declined over the years. In this particular case, she believes that runoff from a stream flowing from Saratoga Lake Golf Club has caused a build up of sand, creating a sandbar on the lake where birds and ducks will go and excrement.
She also said that there was a lawsuit by some lake residents against the golf club in the early 2000s regarding the stream and the club had to dredge the stream, but that there was no requirement to upkeep the dredging.
“We don't know who is completely responsible for maintaining that and, like I said, even dredging, that's just a temporary solution, because here we are now again dealing with the same problem,” she said.
Club General Manager Cailean Mackay said they haven’t received any complaints from people about the stream. He declined to comment further on the matter but did confirm that years ago the club was fined by the Department of Environmental Conservation, although he wasn’t sure exactly what it was for but that the issue was fixed.
Stillwater Supervisor Ed Kinowski also said he wasn't aware of the issue, noting past problems at Brown’s Beach, unrelated to swimmer's itch, that have since been resolved. The previous issues included both E. coli and blue-green algae in the water.
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Mooney said she reached out to the state DEC and Department of Health, which indicated they couldn’t do anything.
She also said she talked to the Saratoga County Soil and Water Conservation District. Her understanding was that they would be doing testing and checking out the issue.
“We were made aware of the situation but testing for swimmer's itch is not something our office does,” said Dustin Lewis, the district manager for the soil and water conservation district. “Any health concerns should be directed towards the health department.”
Saratoga Lake Protection and Improvement District Executive Director Cristina Connolly said this is the first case of swimmer’s itch to be reported in years and the only one so far.
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“With swimmer's itch, it is advised to avoid swimming in shallow, warm water areas with waterfowl for an extended time and to towel off after swimming,” Connolly said.
Mooney said she hopes some solution can be found and her family can return to enjoying the lake.
“I just really want the town and the community to kind of come together and see if we can work together to figure out, you know, let's solve this problem and not just use a temporary fix,” she said.
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