Latrine practices posed health risks to sect

When I saw that headline and read the accompanying story at http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-qumran14nov14,0,6355948.story?coll=la-home-headlines

I had a flashback to the "babes ranch" I attended in the early 70s when I first joined. It was a dilapitated farm house, with a small cabin and falling down barn. There was no plumbing so we drew water from a well and in the beginning used the nearby wooded area as our latrine. We'd dig individual shallow holes, do our business and then bury it. (The leader and his wife used a small porta potty indoors)

This only worked for a short time though because soon there was really no more convenient area to use. So the leaders, not any bit smarter than those Essenes over 2000 years ago, ordered a deep pit be built and a proper outhouse placed over it. All seemed okay for awhile, until people started getting sick. At least a dozen people came down with hepatitis, got extremely sick, and were sent to that falling down barn to live until they healed.

It turned out that nobody thought about the water table and the well when they dug the latrine pit. That pit was dug at a slightly higher elevation than the well, the sewage seeped into the water table and contaminated the well, and that was the end of our water supply. After that we had to fill up containers from a neighbour's hose for drinking and cooking. Fortunately, it was summer time and there was a lake within walking distance, which is where we went to bathe.