I just got this message from the New River Foundation that I wanted to pass along. Have a great Thanksgiving:

"We were hoping to take advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday season to express our thanks for your friendship and support in restoring and protecting the New River. However, we must use this opportunity to relate some unfortunate news instead.

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.

Have you been enjoying your summer, splashing in your stream and swimming in your local lake? You may think you know whether it's safe to take a dip, but depending on where you live, there's a good chance you have no idea.

Given that there is no consistent national standard requiring sewage system operators to alert the public about spills, states play a critical role. But what states actually require public notification after a sewer overflow - in which states can you dive into your local lake or river confident that you won't be paddling through the waste your neighbor flushed down the drain the day before?

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."

I take my dogs to a swimming beach on the South River where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay - and fortunately, Anne Arundel County has a great sewage spill notification program so I know when to keep the pooches out to avoid health problems. While some states work to keep their citizens (and their furry friends) safe by requiring public notification, much of the country is left in the dark about when it might not be such a good idea to take a dip.

Contact with untreated sewage is, to put it mildly, unpleasant. But there are real and significant health effects as well. To find out more, I asked Dr. Joan Rose, Microbiologist and the Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research at Michigan State University a few questions.

Milwaukee's Sewage in Lake MichiganTwo new sewage related things: First, Josh missed a major spill in his May 11 Spill of the Week. Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers just found out on Wednesday that there was a sewage spill last week of approximately 4.1 million gallons of wastewater into Lake Michigan.

Beach OutfallI bet some of you are headed off for a spring vacation pretty soon, as I am. Think of all the great places you can go...

Headed to the beach for some sand and sun?