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BRIDGET HALL GRUMETJulia Law blames bacteria at Hudson Beach for her son's illness, and she'll ask the county to rope off the area until it finds out what's wrong.
HUDSON - Most kids are finicky about food.
Ian Law, 21/2, doesn't eat much because he's afraid he'll throw up.
Most kids like to play hide-and-seek.
Ian, who used to be potty-trained, slips behind the furniture because he's ashamed of his messy diapers.
Most kids are the stars of family photographs and home movies.
Ian is filmed on the diaper changing table, or at the hospital getting tests, or in his mother's arms, crying.
Unlike most kids, Ian (short for Julian) is very sick. Doctors suspect a nasty bacteria has taken root in his intestines, causing daily diarrhea, intestinal bleeding and occasional vomiting.
Batteries of tests have been unable to identify the bacteria strain, but Julia Law pins the blame on the bacteria-tainted waters of Hudson Beach, where her son waded two days before he became sick.
That was 20 months ago.
"If they can't figure out what he has (and properly treat it), the doctors say in 10 years he'll have colon cancer or Crohn's disease," a serious intestinal disorder, Law said.
Armed with water quality reports, utility documents, newspaper clippings and photographs of Ian, Law plans to ask the County Commission on Wednesday to rope off Hudson Beach, also known as Robert J. Strickland Beach, until officials figure out the source of - and solution for - the bacteria problem.
"They need to close it until they figure out what's wrong," Law said, poring over the pictures of her sick son. "We don't need a beach that bad."
The bacteria at the beach has been blamed on several sources over the years:
Septic tanks.
Boaters who might be dumping their waste into the water.
Flocks of birds.
Yard fertilizers washing into the gulf when it rains.
Dogs relieving themselves on the beach.
Officials say the source is hard to pinpoint because the tests used by the Pasco County Health Department don't distinguish between fecal bacteria from human or animal sources.
But the problem is real. The bacteria levels were so high that county parks officials closed Hudson Beach for 22 weeks last year and 12 weeks in 2002. Newspaper articles about Hudson Beach closures date back to 1987.
(Health officials say some of the closures within the past two years were based on average bacteria counts taken over a five-week period, so one unusually high reading could throw off the average for a couple of weeks.)
The replacement of many septic tanks with sewer lines within the past decade has improved the water quality, said Dr. Marc Yacht, head of the Pasco County Health Department. In fact, the beach hasn't had any closures so far this year. But, he said, the beach still has a geography problem: It's a shallow area, framed by spits of land covered with homes. That makes it harder for the heavily used waterway to flush out bacteria or other pollutants, regardless of the source, he said.
"Is it from the boaters? Or the (stormwater) runoff? Or the unusually bad weather? It's very difficult to understand why," said Yacht, whose office does the weekly testing of the bacteria levels. "The important thing to understand is when those (bacteria) counts go up, the advisories (warning people to stay out of the water) go out."
It was one of those advisories that brought a county parks employee to Hudson Beach on Aug. 8, 2002, to post a sign saying the beach was closed. Law already was in the water holding Ian, then 11 months old, as he gurgled and splashed in the salty gulf.
The parks employee chatted with some people, Law said, then stuck a "Beach Closed" sign in the sand and drove away. She got out of the water, read the sign and yelled at the other bathers to get out of the water.
To this day, she is angry at county officials for not telling her and the others to get out of the water. Jim Slaughter, the county's parks and recreation director, said it didn't matter.
The people in the water were already exposed to whatever was in there.
"If they had gotten out at that time, it wouldn't have made any difference because they were already in the water," Slaughter said. "It would have been rather rude to tell them to get out."
Two days after that visit to the beach, Ian had diarrhea and a 105-degree fever.
At first, it seemed, antibiotics helped. Ian's temperature dropped. But the intestinal problems never went away.
The diarrhea is so persistent that Ian dares not go without a diaper. Law meticulously cleans up after him to make sure the sickness doesn't spread to her other children, 10-year-old Savannah and 10-month-old Noah.
"I am very, very disciplined about washing my hands after diaper changes and using alcohol (disinfectants) and wearing gloves," said Law, 36, a former sheriff's deputy and now a stay-at-home mother.
Ian went through the latest series of invasive tests at St. Joseph's Hospital last month, Law said, but the doctors remain stumped. So she placed a desperate call to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
"When I explained the story - I was crying on the phone," Law said. "The doctor said, "We'll get you in here as soon as we can.' "
Her health insurance agreed to cover the tests. JetBlue Airways is throwing in free tickets. They leave May 6.
Finding the cause of Ian's sickness is key to treating it. And once Law knows what Ian's medical future holds, she plans to sue.
"The baby has been extremely ill for a long period of time," said her St. Petersburg attorney, Allen Allweiss. "As soon as we're able to assess what the damages are and the severity of the injuries, we'll be able to proceed accordingly."
The case would be against anyone who polluted the beach or was supposed to maintain it, Allweiss said, although he declined to name anyone.
It wouldn't be Law's first visit to the courts. Law left her job as a patrol deputy in 1993 and sued the Pasco County Sheriff's Office in 1994, accusing her former supervisors of discriminating against her while she was pregnant.
The high-profile suit was settled in 1996, with Law returning as a patrol deputy and the Sheriff's Office admitting no wrongdoing. She left the agency a couple of years later on permanent disability after injuring her back in a car crash.
For now, Law wants the county to close Hudson Beach and run more extensive tests to pinpoint the bacteria sources.
Commission Chairman Peter Altman, whose district includes the beach, said he might support some additional testing.
"The bottom line is, we certainly welcome the encouragement to do something about the problem," Altman said, "but sometimes it's not as easy as it might seem based on identifying where the problem is coming from and having control over the cause of the problem once we identify it."
Any effort would likely require cooperation between county government, the state-controlled Health Department and perhaps the state Department of Environmental Protection, the agency that is compiling a statewide list of "impaired water bodies."
But the county should take the lead, said Geof Mansfield, a senior water resource analyst with the Department of Environmental Protection.
"I'm sure the local government is interested in not having local beaches closed on a regular basis, so they would have economic reasons to make sure it's not a continuing problem," Mansfield said.
In some cases, he said, the state can help design the solutions or provide some funding.
Law hopes the attention around her son's plight will keep others away from the beach and prompt officials to find a solution.
"You can't tell tourists, "Come to our beaches, have a nice time and go home with an infectious disease,' " Law said.
- Bridget Hall Grumet covers Pasco County government. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6244, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6244. Her e-mail address is hall@sptimes.com