American Rivers' President, Rebecca Wodder, sent this letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle regarding the major sewage spills in the Bay that appeared in today's paper.

Editor - Regarding "State EPA chief seeks probe of two sewage spills in Marin" (Jan. 7): The Richardson Bay sewage spill is just a drop in the bucket. Billions of gallons of raw and partially treated sewage pour into California's waters every year.

Keep in mind it takes only about 200,000 gallons to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Our water infrastructure is broken and unless proactive steps are taken, things will get worse.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, California needs $20 billion to address the problems. President Bush has offered up only $555 million for such projects - for the entire country.

As I wrote in a recent post, there is an enormous funding gap between clean water needs to repair and upgrade our crumbling sewer systems and current spending on wastewater infrastructure. And now, the gap just got even bigger. EPA reports that global warming will cause increased storms in some regions, which will lead to more frequent combined sewer overflows (CSOs) in the Great Lakes and New England regions.

There hasn't been a whole lot of good news in the world of sewage treatment lately, as federal funding is cut and existing infrastructure continues to deteriorate. That's why this story out of Lynchburg, Virginia was music to our ears. The city received the EPA PISCES award for efficient use of its state revolving fund allocation.

Start raiding your piggy banks for clean water. A recent article in the Washington Post estimated that it will cost $28 billion to clean up the Chesapeake Bay - of that $6 billion is needed to repair and upgrade sewage treatment plants.