I was looking through the front section of The New York Times the other day (March 13, 2013), and there were several articles having to do with water and water quality. There was an article about the lack of potable water in India, including the depletion of some groundwater supplies. Another article told how public schools in New York City are saving large volumes of water as a result of replacing thousands of old toilets with low-flush models. There was also an op-ed piece about how the melting of ice in the Arctic Ocean is opening up sea lanes and what that might mean. But the article that really caught my attention was in the World Briefing section about how 6,000 dead pigs were found floating in the Huangpu River in China, which provides drinking water to Shanghai. Ugh.

The dumping of pigs was apparently in response to a recent crackdown to prevent selling pork products made from diseased pigs. Apparently finding floating carcasses is not all that rare, as this article says there has been a “surge” of this activity following the crackdown. I’m not sure which part of this story is more disturbing, the dumping of pigs or the sale of food from diseased animals. One bright spot is that it would be a lot easier and cheaper to determine whether a river was contaminated by pig carcasses compared to, say, pharmaceuticals. No expensive analysis necessary…

Actually, when I read this story, I flashed back to histories I’ve read about Chicago 100 years ago. At that time, Chicago was a center for slaughtering livestock and meat production, and animal effluvia were dumped into local waterways. One tributary to the Chicago River was nicknamed “Bubbly Creek” due to the noxious gases that bubbled out of its filthy water and sediment. Ugh.

The June 26, 2011, edition of the Chicago Tribune reprinted an article from 1911 about a man who was robbed, beaten, and thrown unconscious into Bubbly Creek. He was lucky, though, because there was so much gunk in the creek that he floated on top of it. When he came to, he made his way to shore and eventually to his home, where members of his household “scraped and washed him clean” and put him to bed. He eventually was taken to the hospital in a delirious state. No wonder. He probably ended up with a permanent case of the willies.

So, some things really have improved in the last century!