I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of Mary Rawl from Friends of Billy Creek about South Florida's dirty little sewage secret. "It is a disgrace in this day and age when we have the technology to clean and treat sewage that we still dump into our waters.  And Southeast Florida, especially since it is in a severe drought, could be using this sewage as reuse water in an area where 50% of potable water is used for irrigation!"

Surfrider Foundation - Portland Chapter raised awareness of local and national water quality issues with a paddle out for clean water across the Willamette River in downtown Portland on September 8th, 2007.

Photo Courtesy of Surfrider Sebastian InletIt is encouraging to see that surfing is becoming more respected these days. Surfers are now featured in car, credit card, and clothing ads. We're not considered bums anymore, but doctors, lawyers, teachers, and engineers. But in order to surf we need clean water to surf in, and that is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

If it wasn't bad enough that Florida's gambling cruise-to-nowhere industry is allowed to dump millions of gallons of sewage into the ocean waters just a few miles off shore from some of Florida's most popular beaches, now the state is sending sewage to the coral reef.

It would seem to me that dumping 44 million gallons of sewage a year would be illegal but apparently it's not. Gambling day-cruises in operation off the Florida coast get away with polluting coastal waters enjoyed by millions of beachgoers simply by dumping their sewage when they are technically in international waters.