Great Lakes = Great Toilet, But It's Not News?

Some 26 billion gallons of raw sewage are dumped into the Great Lakes every year, according to the Great Lakes Sewage Report Card, a study published by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund (the entire 57-page pdf is here). As you might discern from the spelling, the organization is Canadian, and it's mainly the Canadian press that's taking note, even though -- theoretically at least -- more Americans are the cause and at possible risk. The Globe and Mail reports:

The largest discharges came from big cities such as Detroit, Cleveland and Toronto, where antiquated sewage treatment systems are regularly overwhelmed when it rains and their contents swept untreated into the lakes. But even smaller communities, such as Ontario's London and Kingston, release large quantities of raw sewage.

The problem, of course, is old sewage systems "that combine storm water and sanitary sewers into a single pipe and are prone to releasing raw sewage during wet weather," the group notes. The Canadian researchers got their numbers "based mainly on estimates ... obtained from the municipalities themselves. According to city figures, sewage dumping occurs hundreds of times a year, releasing a cocktail of human waste, disease-causing organisms and hundreds of synthetic chemicals from drugs and personal care products."

Actually, the group's tally -- more than 98 billion liters of raw sewage -- represents only 20 cities, a third of the region's 35 million people. I've translated metric into gallons, but to really visualize this, um, shit, imagine "the equivalent of more than 100 Olympic swimming pools full of raw sewage [dumped] directly into the Great Lakes every single day," says report author Dr. Elaine MacDonald.

Why should Americans care? A handy factsheet from the US Environmental Protection Agency notes

The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater system on the Earth. They contain about 84 percent of North America's surface fresh water and about 21 percent of the world's supply. Only the polar ice caps contain more fresh water.

And the polar ice caps are melting rather quickly.

Hat tip to Grist.