Sensationalism or Just Dumb Reporting?

CNN.com blares out this News Flash from New Orleans:

Official: E. Coli bacteria detected in water

Ya think?

Was there ever any doubt that after a week of inundation, including the upwash from the sanitary sewer systems, the water quality might get a little rank? The sheer breathlessness of the reporting is amazing.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Floodwater in New Orleans is contaminated with E. coli bacteria, a city official told CNN Tuesday.

The official in Mayor Ray Nagin's office declined to be identified.

The failures of the levee system after Hurricane Katrina's onslaught left about 80 percent of the city flooded with water up to 20 feet deep -- water that became a toxic mix of chemicals, garbage, corpses and human waste.

There is nothing new, or particularly newsworthy here. Don't drink the water, kids.

For the uninformed, Escherichia coli O157:H7 -- or what everyone calls E. Coli -- is common. It's one of hundreds of strains of E. Coli normally found in the intestines of all mammals, including humans. It's when it comes into contact with regions further north that people get sick, usually with diarrhea. E. Coli can kill, causing kidney failure or enabling a secondary cause of death through general weakening of the body's immune systems. Cases average 73,000 a year in the U.S., with 61 deaths, most of them associated with undercooked hamburger meat.

Yeah, you can get it by drinking water polluted by sewage, or through open wounds coming into contact with contaminated waters. That's why even now evacuation is still a good idea. This isn't some new discovery: health officials could've told you to expect this years ago.

Which means we've got some amazing whistle-blower inside the mayor's office. You wonder what he and the CNN reporter had expected?

"Lemonade springs where the blue bird sings"?