"The Great Lakes basin is one of the most important freshwater ecosystems on the planet - holding one fifth of the world's freshwater," said the report's author Dr. Elaine MacDonald. "Yet, the 20 cities we evaluated are dumping the equivalent of more than 100 Olympic swimming pools full of raw sewage directly into the Great Lakes every single day."
The Great Lakes Sewage Report Card is the first ecosystem survey and analysis of municipal sewage treatment and sewage discharges in the Great Lakes basin.
The report grades cities on issues such as collection, treatment and disposal of sewage based on information provided by each municipality.
The report documents that many cities in the region have antiquated systems for collecting and treating sewage and regularly release untreated sewage into local waterways.
MacDonald estimated that the 20 cities evaluated, representing a third of the region's 35 million people, dump more than 90 billion liters (23.7 billion gallons) of untreated sewage into the Great Lakes each year.
Signs like this warn of polluted stormwater that is discharged into the Great Lakes. (Photo courtesy City of St. Joseph, Missouri)
Thanks for link - http://www.ens-newswire.com
Original blog item pull by comments from: odiyya The Conscious
