Dogs Can Smell Sewage - A Right to Know Update

November 3, 2008 | Stormwater & Sewage

Katherine Baer
Senior Director, Clean Water Program

 I was thinking about the saying, “close only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades,” because we came very close to passing the Sewage Right to Know bill this Congress. Despite passing the House and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Inhofe put a hold on the bill, preventing it from moving to the Senate floor before we ran out of time. That said, we had the support of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (the sewage treatment association), public health groups and scientists, recreational users and river advocates from across the country for the simple reason that it’s common sense and good public health practice to notify the public when their health is at risk and they can do something about it.

One question we sometimes got about this bill was – how much will it cost for sewer utilities to monitor for these spills? Well, first you may wonder – what?? Sewer systems are not already monitoring for overflows? The answer is that some are and some aren’t. And while the bill would cost something for the systems who currently are not monitoring for spills, the language for this requirement allowed a “methodology, technology, or management program” to fulfill the monitoring requirement to maximize flexibility to best fit each system.

And, as it turns out, dogs are used in some places to detect sewage leaks and I’ve got to believe that a good dog could be a cost-effective methodology to detect sewer overflows. So who knows, even though I started writing about sewage right to know and the benefits of keeping my dogs Willie and Loki out of sewage infested waters, maybe I had it backwards! Given the increased risk of waterborne disease from global warming, we should use all approaches to keep safe while reinvesting smartly in our water infrastructure.

So, I suppose close doesn’t count for legislation, but stay tuned, because right to know will be back...

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