I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of Mary Rawl from Friends of Billy Creek about South Florida's dirty little sewage secret. "It is a disgrace in this day and age when we have the technology to clean and treat sewage that we still dump into our waters. And Southeast Florida, especially since it is in a severe drought, could be using this sewage as reuse water in an area where 50% of potable water is used for irrigation!"

It's been a tough week for streams, creeks, rivers, lakes and oceans thus adding to the unfortunate doom and gloom that pervades the Slog from week to week. For this week's ‘Spills' topper I could have used the story about poop falling from the sky in Chicago, sewage diving in Nebraska, or the story in New Orleans of 126 out of 188 inspected businesses are violating their sewage discharge permits and are dumping raw sewage directly into nearby ditches and creeks, or anyone of California's weekly and sometimes daily beach closures due to sewage leaks, runoff, bypasses, and pump failures. However, amongst the messy world of sewage news I found a very encouraging story from Minnesota that I'd like to share instead. According to the Star Tribune, in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minneapolis has met its goal of "zero-discharge" into the Mississippi River. After years of infrastructure redevelopment and rigid enforcement of stringent storm water runoff diversion requirements, Minneapolis and St. Paul are seeing significant decreases in their discharges into the river. Beginning as far back as the 1960's, the city recognized that separation of storm water drains from the sanitary sewer systems was necessary to reduce wastewater pollution. Over the course of the last decade steady decreases in discharges have helped prove that the actions taken were working to reduce sewage pollution. The system isn't perfect but it is a step closer to keeping our communities safe from harmful pollutants. Congratulations to Minneapolis for having the foresight to act for a healthy river.

Now the Spills of the Week:

Long Island SoundThree decades ago, the federal government and the state of Connecticut promised the state's citizens clean and healthy water. Jointly they set a goal of separating combined sewer overflows to stop the 2 billion gallons of raw sewage from entering Long Island Sound and major rivers during rainstorms and restoring the Sound's dead-zone by removing approximately 60% of sewage treatment plant nitrogen discharges.

Photo Courtesy of Surfrider Sebastian InletIt is encouraging to see that surfing is becoming more respected these days. Surfers are now featured in car, credit card, and clothing ads. We're not considered bums anymore, but doctors, lawyers, teachers, and engineers. But in order to surf we need clean water to surf in, and that is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

If it wasn't bad enough that Florida's gambling cruise-to-nowhere industry is allowed to dump millions of gallons of sewage into the ocean waters just a few miles off shore from some of Florida's most popular beaches, now the state is sending sewage to the coral reef.

It would seem to me that dumping 44 million gallons of sewage a year would be illegal but apparently it's not. Gambling day-cruises in operation off the Florida coast get away with polluting coastal waters enjoyed by millions of beachgoers simply by dumping their sewage when they are technically in international waters.

Manhattan Beach, CAThis saga began with the massive sewage spill in Manhattan Beach in January of 2006, however, unreported sewage spills have plagued Los Angeles for quite a while. Certainly during my tenure as the Baykeeper, I have received numerous phone calls and e-mails regarding sewage spills that happened and yet never resulted in a beach closure despite high levels of bacteria in the water.

Mexico's sewage is getting a serious smack down!

Oahu's Seven "At Risk" Main Sewer Lines: Image Courtesy of Sierra Club Hawaii, 1000 Friends of Hawaii and Our Children's EarthGet out your party hats and thigh-high wading boots because it's time to "celebrate" the one year anniversary of Honolulu's worst raw sewage spill.

Over a six day period in March of last year, more than 48 million gallons of raw sewage were diverted directly in Ala Wai canal while the capital of the Aloha state received a record 40 days straight of rain.

SI: March 12, 2007On weekends I try to sneak in a few quiet moments to grab a snack, kick back in my La-Z-Boy, and catch up on the world by flipping through a few weekly magazines. Imagine my shock to stumble upon the feature story in last week's Sports Illustrated on...wait for it...global warming!