Wedding Guests Sickened by Untreated Spring Water: A Campylobacter Outbreak, 2025

In early June 2025, about 80 people attended a wedding at a venue in York County, Pennsylvania. Within three days, several guests had gastrointestinal illness. On June 23, after learning of a laboratory-confirmed Campylobacter jejuni infection and about 20 more sick guests — with suspicion falling on untreated spring water at the venue — the Pennsylvania Departments of Health and Agriculture asked CDC for help.

Who got sick

On June 30 the health department emailed a questionnaire to the wedding guests. Of 46 who answered, 15 (33%) reported gastrointestinal illness 1–10 days after the event. No particular food was linked to illness.

Where the water came from

The venue normally relied on vendors for drinking water and ice. But when a vendor’s bottled water ran out during the wedding, its staff began drawing water from a kitchen tap fed by an on-site spring — for food preparation and drinks. Nothing marked the water as unsafe to drink.

State inspectors found serious problems at the spring:

1. a broken springhouse roof that let in debris and animal feces;
2. an ultraviolet treatment unit that had not worked for at least two months;
3. signs of animal activity; and
4. the spring’s closeness to a chicken coop and an area used by horses.

Inside the springhouse: broken roof pieces, algae and a crayfish. Image from CDC’s page.

What the tests showed

On July 9 officials took large-volume and ordinary samples from the spring and the kitchen tap, where point-of-use UV filters had been installed after the wedding. CDC’s Environmental Microbiology and Engineering Laboratory tested them:

• No live Campylobacter grew from any sample, but Campylobacter DNA was found in both spring and tap water.
• Fecal indicator bacteria were very high in the spring water — total coliforms above 2,419.6 and E. coli 547.5 per 100 mL — but undetectable at the tap, suggesting the new filters reduced but did not eliminate contamination.
• Markers for bird and ruminant feces were not found, so the source of the contamination remained unknown.

The failure to grow the bacteria does not rule out earlier contamination: Campylobacter can enter a living but non-culturable state, and the samples were taken after people had already fallen ill. Taken together — illness linked to drinking the water, the defects at the spring, and bacterial DNA and fecal indicators in the water — the evidence points to the untreated spring water as the most likely source.

What changed

The venue installed two point-of-use water filters, repaired the springhouse roof, and put up signs saying water from spring-fed taps is not drinkable. State officials urged it to communicate better with outside vendors so the water is never again used for drinking or cooking.

The broader lesson

Private springs are largely unregulated in the United States, and when water looks clean people may assume it is safe. Routine inspection and maintenance of untreated private water sources, and clear signs showing whether water is drinkable, could prevent outbreaks — and pairing environmental testing with epidemiology helps pinpoint the source and guide the fix.

Sources

Based on Kamara RZ, Miko S, Kahler AM, et al., "Environmental Investigation of a Campylobacteriosis Outbreak Among Wedding Attendees — York County, Pennsylvania, 2025," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.