I received a great tip yesterday from Kelly Jo Drey Houck, Executive Director of the Upper Guyandotte Watershed Association, about a TV News story that aired Tuesday highlighting the UGWA's great work to end residential straight pipe discharges in Wyoming County, West Virginia and get people onto septic systems. UGWA's outreach efforts to the community are really making a differnce. However, the reason Kelly Jo contacted me was to let me know that our Fishing, Not, Flushing Bumper Stickers made it on the air - TWICE! send you one.

Volunteers Clean-up Bacon CreekI first got to know the good folks in the Bacon Creek Watershed Council (BCWC) when I went to work for Kentucky Waterways Alliance in 2002.

Bacon Creek had landed on Kentucky's Impaired Waters list thanks to the usual non-point source pollution suspects: sediment and sewage, both farm-related and residential.

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:

West Virginia Rivers Coalition (WVRC) and its neighbors in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and other states have spent a large part of our time during the past year working to stop a proposal by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) that would have lowered water quality standards for the entire length of the Ohio River-- 981 miles-- by allowing more sewage-related bacteria into the river during periods of heavy rain, snowmelt, and high water.

Not to diminish the significance and sheer dreadfulness of the 860 billion gallons of sewage that spill every year in the U.S., but at least untreated sewage doesn't comprise a significant percentage of the flow of any U.S. rivers. However, a recent report out of China revealed that ten percent of the flow of the country's second longest river, the Yellow River, is from untreated sewage.