poop in the lake
I've fretted previously about waste water entering the Great Lakes. Last week, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund released a major study on the amount of raw sewage being dumped into the Great Lakes. It's a disgusting problem, and we are right to be concerned about what's going on upstream from us here in Toronto. We should also be ashamed of ourselves, as a city, for letting our own problems with untreated sewage discharges persist for so long.
In the Great Lakes Sewage Report Card, cities in the region are graded according to the amount of raw sewage that enters the watershed. Most typically, problems occur when rainfall overwhelms the sewage treatment system. Detroit, Cleveland, Windsor, and Toronto are the biggest offenders. (Buffalo and Toledo refused to provide the study with data; Chicago gets a good grade, but its waste water is diverted into the Mississippi watershed.)
Yesterday, when I visited my ducks (who are doing just fine, by the way), the water clarity of last week was replaced by turbidity--a sign of the recent rains.
I think the only creatures who should be allowed to poop in the lake are the ones that were here before humans came and fucked everything up.
In the Great Lakes Sewage Report Card, cities in the region are graded according to the amount of raw sewage that enters the watershed. Most typically, problems occur when rainfall overwhelms the sewage treatment system. Detroit, Cleveland, Windsor, and Toronto are the biggest offenders. (Buffalo and Toledo refused to provide the study with data; Chicago gets a good grade, but its waste water is diverted into the Mississippi watershed.)
Yesterday, when I visited my ducks (who are doing just fine, by the way), the water clarity of last week was replaced by turbidity--a sign of the recent rains.
I think the only creatures who should be allowed to poop in the lake are the ones that were here before humans came and fucked everything up.
Comments
....poopin in yer waterz.
Finned invader hits Lake Ontario
By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
Monday, November 24, 2003, Page A8
Biologists have discovered a grass carp, a dangerous invasive fish originally from Eastern Asia, living in Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Don River in Toronto.
The grass carp was caught inadvertently a few weeks ago by staff at Toronto and Region Conservation during an assessment of the size of fish communities in the Lower Don River, one of the city's most polluted waterways.
So it's possible to process the waste before dumping it in the lake. But since it's government's responsibility and not a private enterprise, it will not happen, or it will cost multiple trillions to do it.
(Just kidding, I don't understand why it's even an issue that raw sewage shouldn't be dumped into the Great Lakes.)