Great photos that I enjoyed seeing even though I never went to River Country. There's something very creepy and sad about a place that is abandoned.
Sadly the whole place looks like a vermin/mosquito breeding ground now.
As to the "bacteria" in the water, I'm assuming it's Naegleria fowleri, an amebae which is deadly and killed someone in Orlando just this summer. It's why you are not allowed to swim in Bay Lake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naegleria_fowleri
Naegleria fowleri (pronounced /nəˈɡlɪəriə/, also known as "the brain-eating amoeba") is a free-living excavate form of protist typically found in warm fresh water, from 25–35 °C (77–95 °F) in an amoeboid or temporary flagellate stage. It belongs to a group called the Percolozoa or Heterolobosea.
N. fowleri can invade and attack the human nervous system; although this occurs rarely,[1] such an infection will nearly always result in the death of the victim.[2]
In humans, N. fowleri can invade the central nervous system via the nose, more specifically the olfactory mucosa and cribriform plate of the nasal tissues. The penetration initially results in significant necrosis of and hemorrhaging in the olfactory bulbs. From there, amoebae climb along nerve fibers through the floor of the cranium via the cribriform plate and into the brain. The amoebae begin to consume the cells of the brain piecemeal by means of a unique sucker apparatus extended from their cell surface.[5] It then becomes pathogenic, causing primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM or PAME). PAM is a syndrome affecting the central nervous system, characterized by changes in olfactory perception (taste and smell), followed by vomiting, nausea, fever, headache, and the rapid onset of coma and death in two weeks.
PAM usually occurs in healthy children or young adults with no prior history of immune compromise who have recently been exposed to bodies of fresh water.[6]
Timely diagnosis remains a very significant impediment to the successful treatment of infection, as most cases have only been appreciated post-mortem. It killed 121 people in the U.S. from 1937 through 2007, including six in 2007 (three in Florida, two in Texas, and one in Arizona);[6] it killed one in 2008 (California) and one in 2009 in Florida.[7]
United States
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the amoeba killed 23 people between 1995 and 2004.
In August 2005, two Oklahoma boys, ages 7 and 9 were killed by N. fowleri after swimming in hot stagnant water of the lakes in the Tulsa area.[12]
In 2007, six cases were reported in the U.S., all fatal:[6]
In July, the amoeba caused the deaths of three boys in lakes around Orlando, Florida. Possible causes of the infections include higher temperature and droughts in that area of Florida.[13]
N. fowleri can be found in all bodies of water in Texas (even pools) except colder water, typically spring fed. In late summer, the amoeba caused the death of a 12-year-old boy and a 22-year-old young man in Lake LBJ in Texas.[14][1]
In September, a 14-year-old boy was killed by the amoeba after likely having caught it while swimming in Lake Havasu in Arizona. The doctors suspected meningitis before the boy died, but did not know the etiology until the CDC confirmed it as N. fowleri.[15][16]
In August 2008, a 9-year-old boy was killed after having been exposed to the amoeba while swimming several times in Lake Elsinore in California. The boy was the first ever confirmed case in Riverside County.[7]
On September 23, 2009, a 22-year-old man hospitalized in Florida died from a confirmed case of n. fowleri after having contracted it at the Orlando Watersports Complex.[17]
There was also a reported case of a 10-year-old child on August, 2009, who died from a confirmed case of "PAM" after having contracted it from a lake in Polk County, Florida.