The Story of Tony and Big Chico Creek
Recent water quality testing has revealed dangers levels of E. coli O157:H7 bacteria in Big Chico Creek, particularly during summer months when families frequent popular swimming spots like Sycamore Pool. While the exact source of contamination is still being investigated, preliminary data strongly suggests that waste disposal from homeless encampments along the creek may be a primary contributing factor. The following story illustrates how this public health crisis likely developed, showing how individual survival decisions by people experiencing homelessness can create broader community health risks - specifically putting at least one child into the hospital.
What follows is a fictional account of Tony, a homeless man encamped along Big Chico Creek, just up stream from Sycamore Pool.
Tony's Encampment and Big Problem
Tony had been living by Big Chico Creek for about three weeks now. His small tent was tucked between some trees, close enough to the water that he could hear it flowing at night. Like many people without permanent homes, Tony had found this spot because it offered some privacy and access to water.
Every morning, Tony faced the same problem that everyone in the homeless encampments along the creek dealt with: where to go to the bathroom. There were no public restrooms nearby, and the few that existed in town were often locked or too far away. So Tony, like others, used a plastic bucket as a makeshift toilet.
The bucket worked fine for a while, but it filled up quickly and became a real problem. Tony couldn't just leave it near his tent - nobody wants to live next to human waste. The smell would be terrible, and it would draw flies. As Tony often said to himself, "You don't shit where you sleep."
So every few days, Tony would carry the bucket down to the creek and dump it in the flowing water. To him, it seemed like a reasonable solution. The water was moving, so it would carry the waste away from his encampment. He figured the creek was big enough to handle it, and besides, what other choice did he have?
Tony wasn't trying to hurt anyone. He just needed a practical solution to a basic human need. And as far as he could tell, nobody seemed to care much about what happened along the creek anyway. Sure, he'd had a cop stop by a few weeks ago who mentioned something about a 7-day notice due to some "Warren Agreement" and said someone would be back to check on him, but Tony never saw anyone return for follow-up. Since nothing came of it, he figured it wasn't that serious and just ignored the whole thing.
What Tony didn't realize was that his solution - and the same solution used by dozens of other people living along the creek - was creating a serious problem downstream. The human waste was contaminating the water with dangerous bacteria called E. coli - specifically E. coli O157.
When families went swimming at popular spots like Sycamore Pool or the Chico Creek Nature Center, they were unknowingly swimming in water that contained harmful germs.
Scientists who tested the water found clear evidence of human waste contamination, especially during the summer months when more people were camping along the creek and more families were using it for swimming. The bacteria levels were so high that people could get seriously sick from just accidentally swallowing a little bit of the water while swimming.
Tony's individual actions seemed small and necessary to him, but when combined with similar actions by many others in his situation, they created a public health crisis. The creek that brought him comfort and seemed like a solution to his problems was actually carrying disease to innocent families just trying to enjoy a day at the swimming hole - the same creek that offered affordable recreation to thousands of Chicoans and served as spawning ground for threatened Chinook salmon.
A Current Encampment Along Big Chico Creek
