Editor's Note: Sorry for the lull in posting. River Action Day 2008 took precedence and was a tremendous success. The Slog will now resume.

A wastewater treatment plant in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada has recently opened an innovative treatment plant that composts human waste, transforming it into fertilizing garden mulch. Part of their 25 year celebration, the company is giving the bags of garden compost, a mix of bio-solids and organic plant matter, away to anyone who wants them. That is if you can get past the idea. For some reason, we're willing to put pig manure anywhere, but as soon as it's our own, hackles rise. Eventually the company is hoping to sell the stuff in gardening stores within the region, but is hoping to raise awareness and comfort with this free campaign.

And now the Spills of the last couple weeks:

We've heard all kinds of plans for "reuse" of wastewater from making snow at ski resorts, to heating buildings, to treating it to potable standards and pipe it irectly into drinking water aquifers. The latest development in sewage reuse is to turn sewage into energy. EnerTech Environmental, an energy research a development company based in Atlanta, GA, has received venture capital funding from Citigroup's Sustainable Development Investments, the Masdar Clean Tech Fund, CNM and Nimes Capital to develop five plants that will convert human waste into renewable energy. EnerTech is a pioneer in the sustainable energy development field. The company has engineered a specific technology it calls SlurryCarb which replicates the natural process that creates fossil fuel from organic material. The process of using sewage or garbage for energy isn't entirely a new concept. For example: methane traps at landfills have been around for years. The true innovation of SlurryCarb is the entire process of removing water from the waste and being able to use what's left as fuel for energy generation. My only question would be is that since the energy source is carbon based does are the same sort of greenhouse gases produced when the sewage based fuel is burned. Are the gases released potentially worse, i.e. methane, than carbon releases from fossil fuels? Nevertheless, with approximately 301,139,947 people in the US, and with our tendency to overeat, it's a safe be that "fuel" will never be in short supply. You can't say that about fossil fuels. And if sewage is burnt for energy than that means it's not being dumped in our rivers lakes and oceans - and here at the Slog we can't argue against that.

Now the Spills of the Week:

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:

In the Finnish town of Nokia, thousands of people have fallen ill due to accidental contamination of their water source. According to AFP World News, a sewage treatment plant worker mistakenly opened a valve allowing treated sewage to flow into the town's water supply. Thousands of citizens have complained of diarrhea and vomiting. The situation seems to be under control, but not after exposing the entire town to potentially serious illness. The water had been treated and was supposed to be released into a nearby river. This incident and the 1193 Milwaukee Crypto outbreak are perfect example of just how harmful untreated sewage. Hopefully, public health scares like these lead to better understanding on why raw and partially treated sewage in our water sources is probably not a good idea!

And now the spills of the week!!

Surfers (SAS) tore it up again this week by interrupting the prestigious British Environment and Media Awards (BEMAS). Two surfers decked out in surf shorts, jackets and ties, presented the "Golden Loo (Toilet) Brush" for "services" against the environment to Alistair Baker, Communications Director of Northumbrian Water. Northumbrian plans to turn off the UV disinfection component of 6 sewage treatment facilities in Northeastern UK because it is now "outside the bathing (swimming) season." Turning the UV filters off would essentially allow partially treated sewage to flow freely into the oceans potentially exposing thousands of boaters, fisherman and tourists to toxic sewage. This is two weeks in a row for these guys! Keep up the good work.

Now the Spills of the Week:

With all the problems Milwaukee has with sewage the last thing they need are drunk drivers crashing into sewage treatment plants. Amanda Berth of Sheboygan, WI is real lucky that when she drove her car through a security fence and crashed into the Sheboygan Wastewaster Treatment Plant that all she suffered was a concussion and a broken leg. After all, her accident could've put her on the list below.

Now for the Spills of the week:

Beachgoers in Scotland were frightened out of the water at the site of what they believed to be the presence of raw sewage everywhere - all over the rocks and in the water. The Scotland Environmental Protection Agency came out to investigate only to discover that the nasty looking globules of "sewage" weren't sewage after all. They are what scientists described as "squirts," a harmless sea creature stirred up and washed ashore by rough seas. They may be harmless but still, something that looks like sewage, floating in the ocean, called a squirt - that's nasty and I wouldn't want them anywhere near me.

Now for the Spills of the Week (I think we may have set a new record):

I am on vacation right now up in NE Iowa and we are getting rained on again today. It has really been a disaster with heavy rains across a broad area of the state over the past week. This has been the wettest August on record for many areas of the state. So the sewage spills we are experiencing now while not good, are understandable. The real serious problems we need to address are the spills that occur more routinely in Iowa as the result of moderate rainfall - or in some cases not rainfall related at all.

Are salamanders getting hooked on smack? Are minnows getting high on marijuana? The drugs Americans use ultimately end up going down the toilet when users hit the head. That's why researchers have started tracking illicit drug use through municipal sewage systems.

This just in, sewage can be used to put out fires. 1500 gallons of raw sewage from a pump truck was used to douse the flames of a fiery car wreck in Georgia. Several septic company workers were heading home when they came across the crash.

"We heard the man in there screaming, so we waited for the police to get there, and police showed up. We asked permission to put the fire out, with the pump truck, and they said 'Go ahead, and do that' so we backed the pump truck over there, and put the fire out."