Katherine Baer will give her assessment of how yesterday's markup of the Sewage Community Right to Know Act (HR 2452) went later, but in a case of perfect timing, USA Today ran a story today highlighting the problem of our country's aging and failing sewer systems. Here are some of the highlights from the story:

With no end to the drought facing the Southeast, metropolitan areas are looking to their wastewater for answers. Wastewater reuse in South Florida could put an end to Miami's irresponsible practice of dumping 300 million gallons of partially treated sewage a day the city currently pumps into the ocean. After twenty years of dumping sewage a couple of miles off shore, where fisherman seek their livelihoods and scuba divers enjoy some of the best diving the east coast has to offer, Florida finally sees the value in preserving the resource it's been throwing away. According to the Associated Press and the Herald Tribune, the Florida Senate Committee on Environmental Preservation and Conservation unanimously passed SB 1302, which mandates a stop to the ocean dumping by 2013, stricter sewage treatment guidelines by 2018 and the elimination of all dumping by 2025. Let's hope that the federal government takes notice and takes similar measures to conserve and protect our country's freshwater resources.

And now the Spills of the Week:

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:

Moundville Lagoon discharges into the Black Warrior (Hale Co.)Nearly 100 wastewater treatment plants have permits to discharge throughout the Black Warrior River watershed. Over the past three years we have assessed operations at the majority of these facilities in order to determine whether or not they are in compliance with their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits under the Clean Water Act.