Navy Seal candidates swim in water contaminated with fecal matter: report

• A new Watchdog report says that Navy Seal’s candidates face risks to contaminated water during training in California.
• He says that the Naval Special War Command has ignored local beach closure notices related to bacteria.
• Almost 1,200 cases of gastrointestinal diseases were reported among students from 2019 to 2023.

Navy Seal candidates have been swimming in southern California waters with high levels of fecal matter, according to a new Pentagon surveillance report.

And they have been doing it while the beaches are closed to the public to avoid exposure to danger, according to the report. The Naval Special War Command did not respond to the request for comments from Business Insider.

An inspector general of the Department of Defense report Last week, he said that “the exposure to Navy Seal’s candidate to contaminated water occurred because (the Naval Special War Command) did not follow the quality closing publications of the San Diego County beach and the Bay Water.”

“As a result of exposure to Navy Seal candidate to contaminated water during training, candidates receive greater health risks,” the report said.

Between January 2019 and May 2023, the Navy diagnosed almost 1,200 cases of acute gastrointinal diseases among candidates for special war combat crew candidates in Coronado. AGI can include a variety of symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Almost 40% of those cases were diagnosed within a week of exposure to ocean water that exceeded state limits, according to the report.

Acute gastrointestinal diseases can be caused by exposure to bacteria, including Enterococcus bacteria That originates in the intestinal tracts of animals and humans, often indicates the contamination of fecal waste.

The researchers found dangerous levels of Enterococcus on beaches at both crowned ends in around 75% of the water samples collected last year.

The Naval Special War is based on local water quality reports provided by San Diego County to identify the bacterial presence in the waters during training, according to the report. Does not perform self -assessment.

When the county water test results indicate dangerously high levels of fecal presence, local beaches are closed until additional tests indicate safer levels of bacteria. But most of the time, when the local beaches are closed, seal training does not stop.

The sources of fecal bacteria may include the runoff of the wastewater treatment plant, the leakage of septic systems and the wastewater discharged.

California legislators have previously highlighted problems with the international wastewater treatment plant by South Bay from San Diego to Congress, according to Coronado’s newswhich investigated How millions of wastewater gallons flow from nearby Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

“The unhealthy levels of pollution are present not only in the ocean, but also the wastewater that is washed on Earth, dried and send dangerous levels of air hydrogen sulfide around the houses of people,” said the Representative of the Scott Peters Congress to Chamber legislators last year.

“Coronado, in my district, is home to the Naval Special War Command where Navy Seal train in contaminated waters with human feces,” he said.

In response to the new IG Report, the Naval Inspector agreed that the security of the Seal candidate is essential, but said that “the Naval Special War cannot easily cancel or relocate 75 percent of its water training activities” .