Learn About Sewage

Why is this issue so important? Because America is drowning in sewage.

Just consider:

• 40,000 raw sewage spills occur each year - more than 100 per day!
• Up to 3.5 million people who swim in this polluted water become ill each year.
• Human health toll includes infectious disease, gastrointestinal ailments, heart disease, liver and kidney failure, arthritis, memory loss, respiratory paralysis, and even cancer.
• The cost of medical care alone can reach $4 billion a year.

A variety of factors are responsible for widespread sewage pollution across the country.

• Aging infrastructure: America invested heavily in wastewater infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s, but has not kept pace with needed investments since then. The average pipe is now 33 years old and many are beginning to corrode and break.
• Development: Rapid development across the country is increasing the amount of impermeable surfaces and sending more runoff into already overburdened sewer systems. Treatment plants cannot increase capacity quickly enough to treat the waste from additional homes and must regularly release excess sewage untreated.
• Funding shortage: Despite EPA estimates of nearly $400 billion needed to remedy the shortcomings in our wastewater infrastructure, federal funding has been continually cut in recent years, leaving communities facing an annual $6 billion shortfall of funds to fix or upgrade sewage treatment facilities.
• Permit violations: Non-compliance with permit requirements is widespread and better enforcement is needed.