Am reminded of Tom Lehrer's song when I read how people foul their own nest. No it's not industry, it's not the chemical
manufacturers, and no it's not agriculture. It's people and their cities and town that are the villains. Let me give you a couple
of examples. Last week (December 30, 1997) a small town in Iowa dumped 500,000 gallons of raw sewage in the river
from which Omaha and other cities down stream draw their drinking water. What did the governmental regulatory agencies
do about this? Absolutely nothing. What did they say? Well by the time it gets to Omaha it will be pretty much diluted, and
besides the brown stuff floating in the river may not be sewage. If it was the sewage, it would have condoms and sanitary
napkins floating in it." (Now wonder where the sewage with its condoms and sanitary napkins went?) And in closure, they
said, there isn't anything we can do about it anyway. Doesn't this make you feel proud that the EPA, USDA, FDA, Center
for Disease Control, &c;. have taken such an interest. Now here's another nugget of information under the title "Shellfish
Water Quality Improving" It seems that there is such an organization known as the National Shellfish Register. Suppose the
Government requires the shellfish to register? Well actually the whole name is ridiculous, including the idea that a fish can
wear a shell. Of course they are referring to oysters, clams, mussels and such. At any rate this organization keeps record of
the area on which shellfish can be harvested (areas supposedly safe from toxic waste). What's interesting in the report is
that the major sources of pollution in our costal waters came from the following major sources in the period 1991-1995:
Urban runoff - 40%
Upstream sources - 39%
Individual waste management treatments systems - 32%
Waste water treatment plants (24%)
Now I don't know about you but I always thought that when you are talking about percentages, adding all the different entities together would give something close to 100%. Ah well, that's the Government for you coming up with a total of 135%.
I suppose that urban runoff is the stuff from our lawns, driveways, sidewalks and gutters that surround us all. Makes you proud that we are number one. And then there is the "waste water treatment plants". Of course that's us again, our handy dandy city sewage plant grinding out more stuff to make it dangerous to eat oysters and such from many areas.
Now upstream sources is an euphemism for agriculture, but it actually includes wildlife, bless their souls, national parks and the fertilizer that farmers use to improve crop production.
Which leaves us with the final grouping: Individual waste management systems. Now this includes your friendly dairy farm, pork producer and cattle feed lot as well as the poultry industry. And under this umbrella are the many food processors, like Campbell's Soup as example, vegetable growers and processors. And in case you may be looking for industrial sources, yes they may be in this category as well.
You can take a look at the data on the following web site:
Interesting though is the fact that industrial waste doesn't show up as a separate number in these figures. The reason being that industry just doesn't contribute all that much pollutants and we wouldn't want to publicize their minuscule role. No it's people, people just like you and me and our demand for green lawns, clean clothes, baths and need for someone else to make our human excrement disappear. So when you hear the "greenies" say the oceans are dying, and we have to do something about it. Let's put it to them right and proper, and insist that people become responsible for their own waste. And, stop trying to paint industry as the big bad source of all our problems. And while we are at it let's insist that the municipal waste treatment plants play by the same rules that industry plays by. When they foul the water, they should pay for the offense on a per unit of pollution at the same price that industry does. (Of course this could put a number of towns in bankruptcy since there is no way they can come up with that kind of money. But shouldn't they?)
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