As a sidenote to this story, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan's Upper Peninsula should be praised as a friend of clean water. His amendment this week or next will put the U.S. House on record for or against the dumping of inadequately treated sewage into our rivers and lakes.
The issue is this: there are two ways to cope with municipal sewage overflows. One is to increase federal and state funding to help communities upgrade their systems to prevent overflows. The other is to cut the funding, and just institute a policy that allows more inadequately treated sewage to gush into our waters.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050518/ap_on_sc/sewer_study_3
Sewage is fouling the Great Lakes and other waters in the region because many municipal waste treatment systems are failing to stop overflows, environmental groups said in a report Tuesday.
The situation poses a health hazard that could get worse under Bush administration proposals to slash funding for wastewater system upgrades and to let sewage plants skip some stages of treatment during heavy rains or melting snow, environmentalists said.
Posted by Dave at May 18, 2005 07:48 AM