Our girls don't have the same experience tho. When my Husband was young he got a terrible ear infection that they said came from the Bay, so we just never took the kids, but only for that reason. (instead of the Bay, they got infections from pools, lol)
As far as the ALS/MS issues, sounds like maybe more of an air thing then water thing to me. It is my understanding that Mobile Bay 'flushes' out much quicker then other similar Bays.
I remember the "Don't eat the fish warnings" due to mercury testing but that involved certain of those swampy areas north of Mobile.
I would be surprised if the ALS cases were linked to smelly paper mills because such mills are just about everywhere.
I would not hesitate to swim in the waters of the Bay except I would not do so at night because of certain large critters.
My sister has been investigating all the ALS/MS stuff for a while. I'll have to get her to add this article to her dossier. Her research does show that perhaps the water doesn't have anything to do with it, and maybe it's the air. I have to believe that if it were the water my whole family would be dead from mercury poisoning. Considering all the fish and shrimp we've eaten out of the front yard, it seems likely that at least one of us (there's 7) would be sick.
We are about a mile south of Brookley Field. The Mobile side of the Bay is pretty trashy, but there's always been plenty of wildlife around. The Eastern Shore is much prettier.
I think I remember her talking about the incidences of "sickness" being higher toward the mouth of rivers that dump into the bay. Satsuma, Saraland, Pritchard, and Chickasaw are all in close proximity to each other, and really close to some of the industrial plants out on the river. I know the paper mills put out some darn toxic smells, but I wonder if they have anything to do with the ailments. My Grandfather worked for International Paper for something like 40 years and died at 83, so who knows.
The Bay does "flush" quickly because it's so shallow. In fact recently nearly all the water was replaced thanks to Ivan. The jog the storm took to the east just before landfall put the eye wall east of the Bay and sucked all the water out. The surge when the storm came ashore filled it back up, but the surge strength was minimal west of Gulf Shores.