Is the water polluted or are plants operated badly?

Sandpoint sewer discharge flagged. How can that be? For over 50 years we've been told "when the sewer water is treated it's pure enough to drink." (Although we've never saw any sewer employee to actually drink it.)  It was said, being that pure it is allowed to be discharged into the river.   The next town, down the river, draws in its drinking water, and again  discharges its sewer water; and so it goes, town after town.

Does anyone remember the 50-year year old sign, in the boys room of Don's Drive-In? It read "Be sure to flush, Priest River needs the water."

So have our waters been polluted with sewer discharge all these years, or are our treatment plants suddenly being operated by incompetents?     

LARRY STONE

Sandpoint