Today is Friday the 13th but consider how lucky the river lovers in Albuquerque feel, thanks to the heroics of one San Juan County employee. James Netcher showed extreme dedication to his job and frank disregard for his own health and safety by jumping into and wading through a pool of raw sewage to make repairs to a faulty valve at the wastewater treatment where he works. This brave, albeit pretty disgusting, act saved the San Juan River.

Despite what you are about to read, rest assured that The Slog is not being taken over by the state of Hawaii. It's just being temporarily overrun...by sewage.Ala Wai Canal March 2006: Photo by Jason Higgins

A couple of weeks ago when we "commemorated" Hawaii's worst sewage spill in history, it was not meant to be a challenge to the Honolulu Sewer Authority to beat last year's record. Well, they went ahead and tried anyway, coming up a tad short by spilling a mere 11,250 gallons of raw sewage into Kaneohe Bay.

Two weeks ago I wrote about the one year anniversary of Hawaii's largest sewage spill. The spill that occurred over the course of six days in March 2006 dumped 48 million gallons of raw sewage into the Ala Wai canal in Honolulu. The city has accepted responsibility for the cause of last year's spill but is fighting a lawsuit brought by a Waikiki surfer who suffered serious infections from surfing in the sewage laden waters off of Hilton Lagoon Beach.

Cumberland River - Nashville, TNWhat better way to send a message to your city council that you've got a sewage problem in your front yard than to bottle the stuff up and hand it right to them.