FOR Americans traveling to an undeveloped part of the world, conventional wisdom holds that drinking tap water is a ticket to trouble.
Those who ignore the advice sometimes suffer what's called "traveler's diarrhea," whose symptoms also include cramps, nausea and headaches. It affects as many as half of all travelers from developed countries who go to developing nations, according to travel health website www.travdoc.com, no matter how careful they are.
There's another potential water-related problem that can strike closer to home just as a vacation is getting off the ground. The running water in nearly 13% of 158 randomly selected passenger airplanes that the Environmental Protection Agency tested this summer was found to have a type of bacteria called coliform; 1.3% of the planes tested positive for E. coli bacteria.
The presence of coliform, which is commonly found in the intestinal tracts of mammals and is an indicator of water quality, does not necessarily indicate a health risk, according to the EPA. Coliform bacteria may not cause illness, but its presence in drinking water indicates that other disease-causing organisms (or pathogens) may be present in the water system.
Thus, some of the same bugs that can cause traveler's diarrhea might be in the water on your airplane. And because many aircraft circulate between domestic and international routes, you don't need to be on an aircraft returning directly from a foreign country to be concerned about water quality.
To understand the issue, it is helpful to take a look at how airlines acquire water, especially when they're in a foreign country.
"Safety is our No. 1 priority, and that is not limited to getting the plane in the air and on the ground," says Nancy Young, managing director of environmental programs and assistant general counsel for the Air Transport Assn., a Washington-based trade group representing many of the world's largest airlines.
"There are significant steps taken both internationally and domestically" to ensure that the water is safe, she says.
Water loaded on aircraft domestically is from local sources that meet the EPA's safe-water standards. In foreign countries, airlines contract with local suppliers that meet EPA standards.
Aircraft water tanks are cleaned and disinfected no less than twice and as often as four times a year, according to Food and Drug Administration and aircraft manufacturer guidelines.
