INDYSTAR: Aging sewers threaten environment, public health

[El Pinko]

Why spend billions to fix our crumbling infrastructure when we can throw the money at greedy lenders and foolish, speculative bubble home buyers getting foreclosed instead?
:sarcasm:




http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/99999999/NEWS0302/80507058



Aging sewers threaten environment, public health
Despite penalties, sewer systems still fouling rivers, streams
By Larry Wheeler and Grant Smith / Gannett News Service
Posted: May 9, 2008

America's sewers are showing their age. Deteriorating pipes, overwhelmed by volumes of water they were never designed to carry, release billions of gallons of raw sewage into rivers and streams each year. The spills make people sick, threaten local drinking water and kill aquatic animals and plants.
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Hundreds of municipal sewer authorities have been fined for spills since 2003, according to a Gannett News Service analysis of EPA data. And dozens of local governments have agreed to spend billions modernizing failing wastewater systems over the next 10 to 20 years. Many of those projects will be financed by rate increases.

But the improvements can't keep up with problems affecting the thousands of miles of sewer pipes snaking underground through each community. Foul-smelling waste gurgles from manholes and gushes down streams and rivers somewhere in the U.S. almost every day.

In March, between 700,000 and 1.3 million gallons of human feces and other waste spilled from a damaged pipe into Grand Lagoon at Panama City Beach, Fla. In January, about 20 million gallons of sewage flowed into Pennsylvania's Schuylkill River after a 42-inch pipe ruptured near Reading, Pa.

[Myrina]

1. Yeah buddy, they were pumping the sewer on E Washington St ..

... the other day when my crew and I were headed to lunch.
NOT a pretty thing. I felt sorry for the workers (in HazMat suits) and the cop who had to control traffic.

And if you live near downtown or on the south side of Indy, you're downstream from all the northern burbs and when we get lots of rain ... well ... be careful where you step when you leave your house ...

:puke: :puke:

[arcadian]

2. Contract it out to Kellogg, Brown & Root

I hear they are doing a "bang" up job in Iraq.