csgray,
You make it worthwhile to read here. Thanks.
Now, a true story from 2006:
We invited a Yale graduate student -- 'M' -- working at Kohala Center to have dinner with us. We'd gotten to know M through her working on resource issues on the island.
When M arrived, she was very upset. Just prior to departing Hilo for our place, she had seen another Yale student she knew and asked him what he was doing in Hilo. That young man reported that his parents had come to visit Hawaii, and they had swam at Kapoho. His mother was dead within 48 hours from a flesh eating something that got into a small wound on her leg.
The dinner went as well as could be expected.
The next morning I called the Dept of Health office in Hilo.
I told the receptionist who answered the phone that I wanted to get information about the woman who had died after swimming in Kapoho, to which she blurted, "How did you find out about that?" I asked to speak to her supervisor. After a long pause, a man came on the phone and I asked if the public had been made aware of the bacteria in the water, to which he responded, "There is bacteria in all water."
Case closed.