Schools

Food, Water Inspections Had Just Taken Place at Walker Creek

County health officials and state water quality folks had just checked ranch before outbreak of vomiting and diarrhea struck students and other visitors at the science camp this week.

Walker Creek Ranch, a residential natural science camp in West Marin where more than 60 people, were sickened Wednesday and Thursday, had just been inspected by water-quality agents and food-service monitors earlier this week, a school official said.

Students and teachers from and volunteer high school counselors started to fall ill early Wednesday and the illness spread quickly through the camp. Fifth- and sixth-graders from two other schools — one in Novato and one in Oakland — also came down with the stomach ailment.

“Whatever happened, we ought to know about it so we can fix it,” said Mary Jane Burke, the superintendent of the Marin County Office of Education, which owns and operates Walker Creek Ranch. “We can’t have a situation where we lose the public trust.”

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In the early afternoon, a letter from the Marin County Health Department was being circulated and sent home with students, Burke said. Dr. Anju Goel wrote that the cause of the gastrointestinal outbreak has yet to be determined and that hydration is important to the recovery process.

Luke McCann, the county office’s assistant superintendent, was at Walker Creek on Thursday overseeing the camp evacuation and the assessment of what went wrong. He said the facility, which had 256 people there at the time, was given a clean bill of health by the county health department Wednesday after its annual inspection and that a state agency that monitors water quality had visited Tuesday.

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“The levels on everything were where we needed to be,” McCann said. “We were pleased because the health and safety of everybody who visits here is priority No. 1 for us. Essentially, we don’t want to speculate on what caused this. We are going to let the medical professionals and the public health people assist us with that.”

McCann said county health officials checked the food service process in the Walker Creek cafeteria, tested the storage and preparation of food, checked the water temperature and observed kitchen protocol. Just a day earlier, water samples were gathered and delivered to an independent laboratory by a state agency.

Two emergency medical technicians are on staff at Walker Creek and have relationships with first responders in surrounding towns, McCann said. A crew from the Marin County Fire Department’s Hicks Valley station went to the ranch Wednesday to assess the problem and referred to a nursing supervisor at Marin General Hospital who recommended that the ranch be shut down, McCann said.

A copy of the letter sent home with kids is attached to this story.


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