Recent news
about sewage dumping in
While these
events are often portrayed as infrequent or a necessary evil, they unfortunately
continue to imbue a sense of unmitigated complacency and misguided environmental
stewardship on the part of many officials and policy-makers
alike.
Assuring
adequate separation of sewage waste water from other source waters in which
community drinking water and contact originates is one of the great public
health success stories of the past 150 years or so.
In 1849,
John Snow, a
Yet over
the past decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United
States Environmental Protection Agency have tracked and recorded a marked
increase in both recreational and drinking water illnesses and outbreaks.
Many of
these have been linked to a new set of emerging waterborne pathogens. One only
need to recall the notorious 1993 Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak to be
reminded of the devastating public health consequences of their
resurgence.
There is a
tenuous balancing act between competing forces of population growth,
unconstrained urban sprawl, accompanying citizen demands and the public's
health.
Truth be
told, in the long term, the latter may indeed find itself on the proverbial
short end of the stick. After all, sewer infrastructure is a byproduct of human
habitation and development and has expanded to meet the voracious appetite of
the modern consumer.
This is
most readily apparent in the square footage of roofs and driveways, the width of
suburban concrete thoroughfares and the increasing number of bathrooms per
square foot of new house.
It doesn't
take long to realize that many municipalities are simply "chasing" sewer
capacity, not to mention the associated construction and maintenance costs
levied from the taxpayer.
To be sure,
great strides have been made to reduce the number of sewer overflows within the
metropolitan community over the past 10 years. However, the sewer infrastructure
has grown commensurately, and volume of discharge and type and epidemiology of
pathogens need to be reflected in a new risk equation, along with frequency of
such events.
Furthermore, the population demographic continues to
change along with immune system status and subsequent vulnerability. Can we
really afford to play this roulette wheel
indefinitely?
To be naive
about this matter may be convenient but is also remarkably shortsighted.
History
tends not to be kind to those that choose to be ignorant about past lessons.
Sewer overflows, however infrequent and unintentional, tempt fate of both
ecosystem and human health.
Paul Biedrzycki of