America's Finest Rivers Awash With Raw Sewage

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America's finest rivers awash with raw sewage
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

Over-extraction is just one of the problems affecting America's waterways. Yesterday's report highlighted a number of threats including pollution from development and factory farming, as well as the building of dams and reservoirs. One of the biggest problems was the release of untreated sewage. Last year more than 860bn gallons of untreated sewage was poured into US rivers, making millions of people ill and causing widespread environmental damage. At the same time the Bush administration is planning to lower clean water standards.

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"Kids in America should be able to enjoy their neighbourhood creeks and rivers without playmates like salmonella, hepatitis and dysentery." The most threatened river identified was the Susquehanna, which starts in upstate New York, makes its way through Pennsylvania and then enters the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the US and another severely polluted body of water.

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Ten Most Endangered Waterways

* Santee river Enormous hydropower dam is draining South Carolina's "forgotten river." State regulators must stop it drying out completely.

* Little Miami river Risks being pumped full of waste and chemicals from proposed sewage plants and local construction work.

* Tuolumne river San Francisco authorities plan a pipeline that could increase the water it drains from the Tuolumne by 70 per cent. Salmon and steel industries and nature resorts are at risk.

More: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=629160

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1. duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1393272