Okay, we just learned that there's meth and other illicit drugs in our watsewater (see my previous post). What about our water? I got this from Brown and Caldwell's California Water News (23 August 2007) and YubaNet.com. The material below was written by American Rivers. You can download a pdf of the report at the bottom of the post.
Report: Americans Swimming in Sewage
Alarming new report shows many people have no idea what's in their water
| By American Rivers Published: Aug 22, 2007 |
Just what is in your water? A new report just released by American Rivers shows major inconsistencies in how residents from 11 states across the country are notified about sewage pollution in their local waterways.
"Each and every year, more than 860 billion gallons of raw and partially treated sewage is dumped into our waterways," said American Rivers' President Rebecca Wodder. "It's enough to fill more than eight thousand Olympic swimming pools a day."
This report by American Rivers finds that only one state (Maryland) of the eleven examined has adequate public notification provisions. In the other 10 states there are either inadequate regulations requiring public notification or poor implementation of existing rules.
There is a simple way to reduce the illnesses from sewage spills: tell the public when their waterways are unsafe. Yet there is no national requirement that sewage treatment system operators notify the public after an overflow. It is left to the states to decide whether they want the public to know when they are swimming in sewage, and the majority of them don't require that the public be notified of a spill.
"Each year, millions of Americans get sick thanks to contaminated water. Who knows how many millions or even billions of dollars it's costing us to nurse these people back to health" added Wodder. "We have a right to know when it's not safe to go in the water."
Federal legislation that would require the community be notified in the event of a spill is currently working its way through the House. Introduced by Congressmen Tim Bishop (D-NY) and Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) in May, the Raw Sewage Community Right to Know Act (H.R 2452) would fill in the many holes left by the current patchwork approach of leaving each state to decide whether or not to tell their citizens about sewage pollution.
"Only 26 members have Congress have signed on to co-sponsor this common sense bill," added Wodder. "That number really has to increase American's shouldn't be forced to wonder about what's in their water."
Download whats_in_your_wateramerican_rivers.pdf
"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." -- Isaac Asimov
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