A very important part of the sewage treatment process is "pretreatment" where industrial dischargers to our sewer systems either treat their waste before discharging to the sewer system or transport their most toxic waste products to other facilities for treatment so as not to cause damage to the treatment plants themselves or cause environmental impairment to our surface waters. Often funding for monitoring and enforcement of facilities discharging to sewer systems that require pretreatment is inadequate or lacking.

Here in Milwaukee, our sludge is made into "Milorganite" (stands for Milwaukee organic nitrogen), which is a low phosphorus, "natural" fertilizer that is used extensively in the Milwaukee area as well as sold throughout the country. Last weekend, it was found that fertilizer applied to isolated areas in 5 different Milwaukee County Parks on July 5th was contaminated with PCBs.

When I paddle on the Potomac River in the DC area, I often see things floating in the water. Usually, it's just driftwood or river grass, but I often check just to make sure.

Why? Because according to a recent lawsuit, DC's Water and Sewer Authority discharges about 2 billion gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers and their tributaries each year.

That's a lot of sewage. So when I see a "floater," I want to know what it is.

To swim or not to swim, that is the question;

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The stomach upset and ear aches of dirty water

Or to take up the fight for effective alert programs...

Please excuse my butchering of the famous line from Hamlet, but this came immediately to mind after reading Sunday's Washington Post article about the safety of the Potomac River. The piece clearly illustrated how confusing it can be to figure out whether or not your river is safe for swimming, summed up well in the opening line, which reads:

Is it safe to swim in the Potomac River? No. Yes. Probably. Usually. Never.

Watch Flushie's Summer Vacation, a two-minute, animated tale that is the cornerstone of the new action-oriented site, www.healthyrivers.org/actnow.

Quite possibly the first talking toilet to hit the river community, Flushie and his "sewage happens" message fuels the activism arm of Act for Healthy Rivers.

This past weekend The Washington Post had a front page story asking if it was safe to swim in the Potomac River. Here in D.C., where most of this office lives, swimming in the river is banned. If you go upstream a little ways though, they think it is safe, most of the time. The article does mention the raw sewage that gets dumped into the Potomac when it rains, but the focus is on people not knowing it is unsafe. Just another example of why we need the Raw Sewage Overflow Community Right-to-Know Act.

Now the Spills of the Week:

Spill-Side: A blocked sewer line is being blamed for a 9,000 gallon sewage spill in Riverside, CA.

As Missourians splash in the state's abundant waters to relieve the sweltering heat of summer, few realize that our tax money is being spent to keep streams polluted, not to keep them clean and safe.

Newly reconstructed CSO on the Mississippi River in St. LouisThe Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) is on a multi-year spending spree to conduct studies aimed at exempting streams from clean water protections. The MDNR has spent nearly $300,000 this year on studies used to exempt streams from important clean water protections—and it's poised to spend still more this summer and fall. This is the third year MDNR has either contracted for the studies that downgrade stream protections—called Use Attainability Analyses (UAAs)--or done them using state employees, at an overall undisclosed cost.

Throughout Southern Louisiana, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has been promoting “wetland assimilation” projects as a potential low-cost alternative for waste water treatment. In these projects, treated and disinfected wastewater is released into existing wetlands instead of local streams. While I am supportive of beneficial use of waste, I have witnessed some causes for concern related to one of these projects near Hammond, LA.