New York 400 million gallons of raw sewage is dumped into the Gowanus Canal every year. NY Daily News, Apr. 20, 2012. Illinois Every day, 1.2 billion gallons of untreated wastewater is dumped into the Chicago River. New Jersey A general permit allows 280 combined (sewage plus stormwater) sewer outfalls to discharge into state waters. Several beach areas are labeled unsafe. Texas When New York banned ocean dumping of sewage, concentrated N.Y. sludge was being transported to Sierra Blanca, near the Border. Texas has anti-dumping legislation for its own sewage, but like most states, controlling combined wastewater-rainwater outfall is difficult. Kansas Kansas City dumps raw sewage into the Missouri- 7 billion gallons dumped by Kansas City each year.
In Canada, 6 percent of sewage water remains untreated before dumping. The worst offender is the city of Victoria, which dumps its sewage directly into Juan de Fuca. Also noteworthy is Montreal, which allows 3.6 billion liters to enter the St. Lawrence untreated. Canada has no national enforcement of water polution controls, each province sets its own rules.
Lack of a national program makes much of the work of government laboratories ineffective.
Sewage treatment and disposal is a problem throughout North America, much sewage overflows and is combined with rainwater outfall. -------------------------
Pipelines for petroleum are a separate problem. Kansas-Nebraska are laced with petroleum and product pipelines; the Keystone adds one that is modern and less prone to leaks. The Denver-Ponca City-Houston pipelines are the largest currently. A map of the Ogallala aquifer shows thet the Keystone XL pipeline touches on a few extreme eastern points on the aquifer. http://www.transcanada.com/docs/Key_Projects/Ogallala-Aquifer_Map.pdf The TransCanada statement on the aquifer- http://www.transcanada.com/docs/Key_Projects/pipeline-safety-ogallala-aquifer-2012.pdf
Note that 21000 miles of pipeline cross Nebraska, 3000 carrying hazardous materials. Many oil wells have been drilled in sediments overlying the aquifer.
Obama putting Keystone Pipeline on Fast Track. The Star, March 22, 2012, Ken Thomas, Associated Press.