Here's an update on las month's horrendous San Francisco Bay sewage spill. Iinitial reports put the spill at 5.2 million gallons. It has now been discovered that the spill was in fact much larger and as much as 7.5 million gallons spilled into the Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The wastewater deposited into Calera Creek, and subsequently the ocean, contained everything from fats and oils to heavy metals and anything else flushed into the sewer system that day.

Ryan Severn of Seattle takes dedication to a whole new level. Last week while Ryan and his wife, Ann, were cleaning an office building, Ann accidentally dropped her wedding band down in to a sewer. Not just a sewer pipe, but a full on vat of sewage. Ryan, seeing that his wife was very upset at losing their symbol of matrimony, dove into the sewer and starting searching for the ring in the sewage! "I strip down in underwear," he said, "and went in." Unsuccessful, Ryan left and immediately bought a wetsuit, came back and gave it another go with a handmade strainer. Yet again, he was unsuccessful. So, being the committed husband, he hired professionals to drain the cesspool, sift through the slimy mess and sure enough he found the ring!!! That takes a level of commitment that is hard to find. Amazing and impressive.

And now the Spills of the Week:

When you think of the Great Barrier Reef you think of beautiful fish, pristine ecosystems and great surfing not raw sewage. According to Bruce Gunn, a former diving guide on the reef, sewage is an increasing threat to not only marine life but human health as well! Gunn claims that while he worked as the chief engineer on a charter dive boat in the 1990s, he was fixing a pump on a sewage tank when a valve broke cutting his wrist and covering him in raw sewage. Tragically, he contracted Hepatitis C from this incident and his had failing health ever since. Gunn is now trying to shed some light on the growing problem of sewage dumping within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. "Today there are hundreds of charter boats doing two trips a week and each of them is dumping a 44-gallon drum amount of what I call cocktail sewage," he said. "I saw a mullet once with a tampon still hanging out of its mouth." That's one of the grossest things I can imagine. This is a great example of how sewage in our rivers, lakes, streams and oceans can not only cause great damage to those natural ecosystems, but poses significant human health risks with very real and devastating consequences.

And now the Spills of the Week:

Photo by the Evening SunA big stink became of a youth football game in Scotland this past week. The game had to be canceled after a cesspool erupted in the "pitch." Referee William McKenzie made the winning call when he said, "There was no way I was going let the boys wade in that and get the ball so for health and safety reasons I called the match off. It was disgusting and appalling." The boys agreed and to celebrate they ran and slid through the mess in jubilation. Just kidding.

And now, the spills of the week: