RCW, it's only one's imagination that gets in the way. Virtually every town dumps their sewage into a river and the next town pulls it into their water plant, filters it and sends it through out the city....only to repeat the process over and over all the way to the ocean.
The goal is the effluent from the sewer plant is clean enough for gold fish to survive!
New Yorkistan is good at one thing....regulations. I was a former regulator of state regs. The Feds aren't far behind.....
Since the industrial revolution, outfalls and downstream intakes were common. Add CSO's (combined sewer overflows...wastewater with stormwater) along with numerous "mill races" along creeks and rivers to power factories; the rivers were a mess.
Our region is very rural, and our topography was formed by glaciers, with general north/south river valleys. Many small villages located near the rivers got their water from hill springs, others from the rivers or upland lakes.
Over time, most public water here is now derived from drilled wells into the unconsolidated or confined aquifers in the river valleys. One big exception is New York City....unfiltered surface water from the NYC Watershed in the Catskill Region of NYS. We live ~50 miles outside of the watershed.
Years ago, I was offered a job with an engineering company to build sewer plants in the NYC Watershed. It was cheaper for NYC to upgrade many sewer plants in the Catskills than filter their water. Phosphorus removal criteria dictated very expensive treatment technologies. Hundreds of millions spent on many very small sewer plants scattered in the region funded by NYC.
The upshot is the rivers are cleaner and the outfalls are cleaner, but the costs can be extreme. The river I live near is a good fishery, and I have personally seen a 10 pound Walleye, and 48" northern pike come out of it within a mile of my house, which is half mile from an outfall of a village sewer plant.
Unfortunately, along with drinking water implications, federal CAFO regulations limit/regulate animal concentrations, thus adding to the $$cost/cwt of milk produced for our dairy farmers. NYS is a large dairy state, and I grew up on a dairy farm.
I can't disagree 'Cat, but things are supposed to be "better" now....if you consider government regulation a good thing.....
End of my editorial......Let's get back to funky septic tank lids, picnics on your septic tank, or bologna sandwiches...that's more fun!!
PS - I think Wolfman having a picnic on his new septic tank is a first, but a 1,250 tank is a good size for a table......but f#$king weird.....