The Gallup surveys found a median of 75 percent of adults from 140 countries said they were satisfied with their air quality, while a median of 68 percent were satisfied with water quality.

Ninety-five percent in Ireland said they were satisfied with their air quality, followed by New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Singapore, Germany, United Kingdom, India and Tajikistan.

The countries least satisfied with their air quality were Hong Kong, Angola, Malta, Iraq, Haiti, Lebanon, Albania, Russia and Ukraine.

Ratings of water quality were highest across wealthier countries in Europe, the Americas and developed Asia.

Specifically, 97 percent of residents in the United Kingdom were satisfied with water quality, 96 percent in Germany, 96 percent in Sweden, 96 percent in Denmark and 95 percent in Singapore.

Perceived water quality was generally lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and countries that were formerly in the Soviet Union. Seven of the 10 countries where residents are least satisfied are in sub-Saharan Africa, where residents sometimes have to walk miles for water, and waterborne and water-related diseases such as cholera are common, Gallup officials said.

The telephone and face-to-face interviews of 1,000 adults, age 15 and older, were conducted in more than 140 countries in 2011. The surveys’ margin of error ranged from 2 percentage points to 5.1 percentage points.

“America’s Most Endangered Rivers,” the annual report from the nonprofit advocacy group American Rivers, is to be released early Tuesday. It notes what local friends of the Potomac have said for years: that urban development is funneling tons of polluted rainwater to the river, that chemical fertilizer and manure from farms make matters worse, and that wastewater overflowing from sewers, along with pharmaceuticals flushed down toilets, contribute to dead zones in which marine life dies and might cause fish to switch sexes. Some male fish in the river mysteriously have eggs.

Just as troubling, said American Rivers President Bob Irvin, is a range of proposals by House Republicans to strike various provisions from the Clean Water Act as it nears its 40th anniversary in October.

The Senate has blocked many of these efforts, but advocates worry about future attempts. If Congress ends regulations that help clean the Potomac’s head­waters and limit pesticide use by municipalities and farms, “not only will the Potomac River suffer tremendous harm but other streams and rivers as well,” Irvin said.

The report placed the Potomac atop nine other rivers nationwide, including the Green River, the largest feeder to the Colorado River, the Chattahoochee River, which runs by Atlanta, and the Missouri River, which flooded the Midwest last year.

Critics of the report, some of them river stewards, said they appreciate American Rivers’ attempt to call attention to the river’s problems and looming congressional fights over regulation. But they said there’s no scientific basis to say one large American river is more endangered than another.

Last year, the Susquehanna River topped the list of 10 most endangered rivers because of controversial drilling in Pennsylvania that uses hydraulic fracturing, employing high-pressure water blasts and chemicals to fracture shale rock and release natural gas.

The Mississippi River is beset by polluted runoff from industrial agriculture, and the Chattahoochee, also on the endangered list, easily has issues equal to the Potomac’s, advocates say.

Owing to its location, the Potomac is sometimes called “the nation’s river.” Five million people rely on it for drinking water.

Since the 1960s, measurements by the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin have shown its water quality improving. ICPRB spokesman Curtis Dalpra noted that the largemouth bass fishery has rebounded in some sections of the river and that sewage treatment plants are using sophisticated processes to remove nutrients or are slated for upgrades.

The American Rivers report acknowledges the improvements but lashes out at Congress, labeling attacks on the Clean Water Act “relentless” and calling on lawmakers to shelve legislation that would roll back clean water regulations.

American Rivers is not alone in its concern.

Hedrick Belin, president of the Potomac Conservancy, said the river cannot improve if the federal government backs off its role in regulating pollution. “This is the nation’s capital,” Belin said. “We should be able to have a river where it’s not illegal to go swimming,” as it is in the District, and “where it’s not recommended to not eat the fish you catch.”

Ed Merrifield, the Potomac Riverkeeper, said the Potomac is not as dirty as it was before the Clean Water Act became law, but it is hardly clean. Its water quality received a D in a report card last year by EcoCheck, a University of Maryland and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration partnership.

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority has invested heavily to stop sewage overflows, but they continue, and the sewage plant sends out skimmers periodically to remove trash on the river surface, and the river water is unhealthful, Merrifield said.

“For years, we’ve been reading about the intersex in the fish, up to 80 percent in the places they’ve tested for it,” Merrifield said. “Yet there hasn’t been much of any action on this in Congress, and it’s very sad because all our drinking water comes from here. The best and safest drinking water comes from healthy rivers and streams.”

It is against the law to bribe a government official, it is against the law for government officials to accept bribes” except in the cases of big oil, big natural gas frackers, big nuclear energy, big coal mining industry, big medical insurance and big pharmaceutical industry.

The industries named above write their own legislation. At election time, they back both Democratic and Republican candidates, hedging their influence on both sides of the so-called aisle. BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell earn roughly 100 million dollars per day, every day of the year in the US. Their Vote 4 energy campaign (via their lobbying entity, American Petroleum Industry) seeks to make unregulated oil drilling with no safety, no public health and no environmental safeguards the new de facto standard.

American Petroleum Industry has managed to keep the prostitute news media from reporting on the Chevron Brazilian Oil Spill and the Royal Dutch Shell North Sea oil spill. The industry has become adept at sanitizing oil spills at the so-called news media level, most people don’t hear about spills unless it is in their proverbial back yard. BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell want to go on making their record profits while Americans spend 8.5% of their disposable income on filling up their gas tanks. BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell want to drill unregulated, with rolled back environmental barriers and safeguards.

ANGA, the American Natural Gas association, wants to make unregulated fracking the new de facto standard in America. Their lobbying arm uses jobs, clean and abundant as their brainwashing tools. Here’s a list of the click here 78 chemicals used in Pennsylvania fracking. There are 750 different chemicals used in America” Dick Cheney and George Bush deregulated the natural gas industry so they could use these chemicals with no oversight, no regulation, and no impediment of any kind. Their own workers do not know the contents of the products they use daily.

Each of the industries above whitewashes what they do, whitewashes their own dirty laundry with politicians, whitewashes the deaths they cause, and whitewashes their price-gouging policies with the American public. We all are aware we are being screwed, but the brainwashing goes so deep people like Occupy who speak out are made to look like kooks.

Americans are like raw pretzel dough in the hands of businesses and politicians” every year we are made to tolerate paying more for less, to suck up our brainwashing while we are told big oil is going to provide us with jobs, that allowing big oil to pollute new aquifers will somehow benefit all of us with a bigger gallon of gasoline for a few dollars less. The promises are implied, meanwhile more news bureaus remain more silent about the North Sea and Brazilian oil spills. The TV stations get ad money from big petroleum; they are not about to bite the oil-soaked hand that feeds them. We are asked to absorb more lies every year, like there is no threshold of mistruth a gullible American populace won’t swallow. Fracking is clean and creates jobs. The health and pharmaceutical companies did not write Obama care. BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell are providing with jobs and economy. Never mind that every dime they can possibly offshore is gone forever. Big Pharma is giving us maintenance drugs that won’t cure diseases, making us life-long pharma-junkies.

We are asked to digest all of this, to digest feeble excuses for war so the war whores corporations can be paid. Digest it all and not say a word to the contrary about the 750-fracking chemicals, the oil spills, and the suicidal soldiers with PTSD”

The sad thing is they keep bending our brains, our hearts, are souls. Every year, the people in America tolerate more and more of our friends, family and neighbors drinking more, taking Prozac, being more on edge. The murder rate goes up, the rape rate goes up, the prison population swells” and we are told that big petroleum is going to pump 803 billion dollars into the US economy. Maybe they meant 803 billion barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean off of the coast of Brazil.

Big business corporations, congress and the lobby industry are stuffing more soul sickness down our throats than ever before. It almost seems like Occupy Wallstreet hit some form of lobbying industry panic button” The quantity and content of the ads has never been more you, the little people, need us, your local neighborhood global consortium. Chevron’s ads with the cellos playing music are expensive” So are BP’s and Exxon’s. The more Occupy Wallstreet pushed one way, the more the lobbyist industry has pushed back with mind-numbing, soul-blackening jargon-ads. Even the government has their own lies and agenda; China is rapidly becoming our new enemy” My God, when is the United States going to have human rights? Where are human rights here at home when ANGA wants to frack with 750 chemicals, many of them known carcinogens like Ethyl Benzene?

Politicians like Mitt Romney or Barack Obama refer to capitalism, market forces and free enterprise” Meanwhile, lobbyist organizations spend millions and millions of dollars trying to brain wash us into liking the poison, the dishonesty, and the financial usury that was and is being pushed down our throats. What is so free market about an industry and lobby that has to corrupt politicians and lie to us every night on prime time so they can keep their 100-million-dollar-per-day profits? That is not free market, that is Fascism. Mussolini had this type of government in Italy in 1929; he had to enforce it with guns and violence. Think of all the armed cops pepper-spraying the Occupy-Wall-Streeters, what is the difference between Mussolini and now?

The TV ads are the George Orwell Ministry of Truth keeping the populace in line. The health care lobby in 2009 spent $396 million dollars on bribes thinly disguised as campaign donations. Is there a one of us who wouldn’t rather see $396 million spent on AIDS-cure-research or cancer-cure research?

What Occupy Wallstreet did, for an all too short of a time, was to expose the hypocrisy, the deceit, the lies behind the slick ad campaigns. Wallstreet itself is too big. The odd thing is none of these companies seem to be able to exist without the government propping them up in some way. The same may be said of our current government, it cannot exist as is without these titan multinational companies pumping in bribe money thinly disguised as “campaign donations”.

Every day, every year, billions of dollars get spent on political bribes, TV ads, so we can be deceived by industries that want only one thing” to flatten our wallets and fatten their own. If you ad up what big health, big oil and big gas spend on lobbying, on political bribes, on TV ads” it is enough money to cure many of our social ills. What a monumental waste of resources. But never fear, the government will just print more dollars.

The odd thing about the new robber barons is, they make the old robber barons look honest. The old railroad robber barons did not lie on Television every night, 6-7 times an hour. All that ad money, basically going into a 60-second, “I’m not a thief” spiel.

When the old American Telephone & Telegraph Company got to big, the federal government broke it into seven pieces, based on the premise a monopoly is not in the interests of the American people. There’s no danger of that happening again to any of our new, current monopolies. Too big, period. Literally all of the companies that run the US Government are too big. Banks, energy giants, pharmaceutical industry, health insurers, frackers, coal monopolies, etc., are all too big.

The 4-5 months Occupy Wallstreet was encamped in all the major cities, including near K street in Washington DC, was a great start at exposing the hypocrisy. Exposing the hubris, the hypocrisy, is one tool we have for exacting some type of change. Positive, meaningful change will not come out of Washington. It will not come out of Democrats controlling the House. If any positive change is to be exacted, it will come from exposing the lies, the hubris. Chevron’s multimillion dollar “We Agree” campaign was punked by the http://www.chevron-weagree.com/ website. Ads such as “we agree oil companies should clean up their own messes” appears on the Chevron-spoof website. The environmental group launched their media campaign before Chevron, they emailed to Chevrons email list. Sometimes it does not take a billionaire to cut through the deceit of these monopoly liars.

The politicians fawn and pose as if they are doing all of us a big favor” They are so insane, they actually think they are serving us, rather than enslaving us, as they transfer tax dollar after tax dollar to weapons developers, oil drillers, frackers, health care companies who want to be paid directly by both the government and by us, the mark. We aren’t customers, we are the marks, and they are the grafters and grifters. The federal government grafts off of us, the monopolies grift off of us, both act enraged and offended any time anything or anyone looks like a threat to unimpeded grafting and grifting. I’m pretty sure Occupy Wallstreet hit a nerve or two somewhere.

It is undeniable that Keystone XL would bring about immense devastation to other cultures. Consider the members of Canada’s First Nations groups, who have been more vocal about the need to stop the pipeline than almost anyone else. If Keystone XL were approved, their way of life would enter a rapid downward spiral and ultimately collapse. It’s not that the physical metal pipeline itself would be so bad; rather, the pipeline’s true perniciousness lies in the fact that it would enable Canada to produce almost one million additional barrels of tar sands oil every day. In order to exploit a region’s tar sands, new roads must be built, enormous machines have to be brought in, and, most harmfully, every tree in the surrounding region needs to be cleared or burned. A population that relies on nature will be totally unable to continue to sustain itself if oil companies wipe out almost all biodiversity and bring in dangerous chemicals and pollution.

At a broader level, Keystone XL continues to display striking signs of cultural elitism. As a project that would allow for one of the planet’s strongest carbon sinks to be ruined at an expedited speed, it would single-handedly make it significantly more difficult for the world community to bring about climate stability. Unfortunately, when Western nations, or in this case, the U.S. and Canada, cause climate change, it is populations in less developed, less Western parts of the world that have to shoulder the burden the most. For example, millions of people in Asia and South America rely on glacial water for farming and drinking, and with climate change, they will struggle to sustain themselves as glaciers dwindle. Similarly, climate change is causing altered weather patterns and desertification, which disproportionately impact the people who rely most directly on the natural world for their livelihoods, or, in other words, people in less developed countries.

Most infuriatingly, it is not even as though the U.S. needs tar sands oil or else it will not be able to fuel ambulances or power schools. The reality is that Americans use a huge amount of energy to perpetuate inefficiency and wastefulness. Furthermore, enormous reserves of potential renewable energy go unused every day because individuals and legislatures refuse to make sufficient investments. In other words, by continuing to support tar sands oil (as we already started doing several years ago with the construction of other pipelines from Canada) we are choosing to decimate other cultures and livelihoods before even fully investing in robust efficiency standards and renewables.

Fortunately, though, while tar sands oil importation has exposed America at its worst, it has also shown that in all corners of the country, there are people who demand social justice and are willing to fight for it.

Having previously been privileged to lead Tar Sands Students, I have been able to see first-hand the groundswell of opposition that has risen up against environmental cultural elitism. Over the course of just a few months, students from over 20 different high schools have joined forces with Tar Sands Students in an effort to stop Keystone XL. The group even grew large enough to merit a meeting with the White House. Last February, two senior advisers at President Barack Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality sat down for an hour-long meeting with Tar Sands Students in order to discuss the group’s concerns. It truly was a great example of how citizen activism can begin to fix injustices.

Cultural elitism and the chaos that it brings are unfortunately still prevalent forces, and Keystone XL is just one example out of many of America disrespecting less-developed parts of the world to meet its hunger for abundant power. However, if human energy is used to its full potential, there is almost no doubt that innovation and activism can prevent us from causing further harm to other cultures, and in the process, make this country strong, too.

The findings, published in this month’s issue of the journal Environmental Science and Technology, are based off of data from 2005. Steven Barrett and co-author Steve Yim found that car and truck exhaust was the leading cause of premature death. 3,300 affected people died each year, as compared to 3,000 Britons who died in car accidents the same year. Shipping and aviation was second to car exhaust as the leading cause of premature death, causing 1,800 early deaths a year. They also found that emissions from outside the U.K. contributed to 6,000 early deaths annually, while emissions that traveled from the U.K. to outside regions contributed to 3,100 early deaths in other European Union countries.

Barrett and Yim were interested in conducting the study based off London’s current violation of air quality standards set by the E.U. as well as the possibility that the U.K. will be fined for disobeying air pollutions laws.

“We wanted to know if the responsibility to maintain air quality was matched by an ability to act or do something about it,” says Barrett, the Charles Stark Draper Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, in a prepared statement. “The results of the study indicate there is an asymmetry there.”

The study consisted of analysis of data provided by the British government. The information was divided into different transportation sectors, including commercial, residential, and agricultural resources; road transport; power generation; and other transport like aviation and shipping. After compiling data, the team created simulations of temperature and wind fields as well as a simulation of a chemistry transport model. In the simulation of temperature and wind fields, the two were able to see how weather could affect the movement of emissions. In the chemistry transport model, the researchers came to understand how emissions from different sections corresponded. Lastly, the group looked at the simulation results with a population density map to see which areas had the longest exposure to emissions. Barrett found that the emissions were made up of molecules less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which related to the premature death.

The researchers also found that emissions varied by location. For one, in northern England, power plant emissions tended to have greater influence as there were five major plants in the area. Another area of concern was London, where shipping and aviation have a greater affect on health based on the proximity of airports.

“The difference between a rural area and a dense urban area is probably about five to ten micrograms, so those percentages might be telling of the difference between living in a clean, rural area and a heavily polluted urban one,” commented Professor Joel Schwartz in an interview with the Telegraph.

Barrett also believes that cars and trucks are seriously damaging to human health, while power plants are less of a threat.

“People have a number of risk factors in their life,” Barrett remarked in a prepared statement. “Air pollution is another risk factor. And it can be significant, especially for people who live in cities.”

Overall, the report’s results are similar to an earlier study by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) by the British government. Recommendations for reduction of emissions include reducing of black carbon from car exhausts, investing in public transportation, and having not as many cars on the road. In a BBC article, Barrett stated that the premature deaths are costing the U.K. between six to 60 billion pounds.

“We are all in this together,” noted Fintan Hurley of COMEAP in a similar interview with BBC. “If one city were to clean up its traffic, it would still be dealing with pollution from traffic elsewhere.”

When doctors told me I had a tumor on my kidney, I didn’t start arguing with them about cell division. They went to medical school, and I did not. I didn’t need to understand how CAT scans worked, or what exactly an MRI did. If I wanted to save my life, I did not have years to study the science, do the research, second-guess the diagnosis.

I feel the same way about global warming. I trust the experts. They’ve spent decades honing their knowledge, and I have not. Nor has anyone who tells us global warming isn’t happening. Climate scientists are in overwhelming agreement. And they are ringing alarm bells.

We are generating so much greenhouse gas pollution that we are tipping the balance of our beautiful atmosphere. Some carbon in the air is necessary, of course. But we are trapping too much heat on Earth — think of it as covering our planet with too many blankets. We can’t kick them off, so we get overheated.

The experts are telling us that we must change the way we produce our electricity — because power plants are the single largest source of carbon pollution in this country. If we’re burning coal, we have to burn it clean. If we’re burning gas, we have to burn it clean. And we have to keep investing in renewables, like wind and sun power. We must let Congress know we want greenhouse gas pollution regulated — and it takes only a moment to send your representative a comment.

What do greenhouse gases have to do with our children’s health? Lots, it turns out. None of it good. The warming caused by greenhouse gases intensifies the ozone pollution, the smog, across large parts of the country. Ozone is invisible. That’s why we get Ozone Alerts on days when the skies look clear and blue. That makes it even harder to tell a child she can’t go out and play with her friends.

Smog causes more asthma attacks, more hospitalizations for respiratory disorders –more premature deaths.

Children are most at risk because their airways are smaller and their respiratory defenses are not fully formed. Their higher breathing rates increase their exposure to pollution. The American Lung Association reports that children who regularly breathe high levels of ozone may have reduced lung function as adults.

Moms are blowing the whistle on polarizing politics. Enough already. We share the air.

So for starters, how about some simple common sense? Don’t build more mess into the system. Limit the amount of carbon pollution a new power plant, whether it is burning coal or natural gas, can put into the air.

That’s what EPA is proposing with the recent release of a historic clean air standard for new fossil fuel power plants. The standard is smart — and smart states are already showing us that they can make limits on carbon pollution from power plants work: Oregon, California, Montana, Minnesota, Washington, New Mexico and New York.

Build it clean. Right from the start. Tell EPA that makes sense.

Moms — and dads — have to make our voices heard. No one cares more about our children. Let Congress know that we want strong regulation of greenhouse gas pollution. Especially because we can have highly functioning, cost-effective electricity generation without all the pollution.

I trust the experts. I’m interested in the science behind what’s going on here. But I’ve already heard enough to alarm me. I really care about what kind of world we leave behind for our children. So, while I’m studying — and wondering why winter never happened this year — I want to do everything I can to demand that utilities stop dangerous greenhouse gas pollution.

No politician wants to make a mother angry — and nothing makes a mother angrier than watching political games take precedence over our children’s health. We must let EPA and our representatives know that we want to stop greenhouse gas pollution. Pollution isn’t good for anyone, especially our little people.

Moms know how to clean up messes. So tell Washington, Listen to your mothers!

As with every new rule, the EPA is now open to comments on its rule for limiting carbon pollution from from new coal plants. Tell EPA that this rule is a good, cost-free way to start the process of cleaning up greenhouse gas pollution.

The ruling last week marks the latest step in a long-running dispute about a buildup of heavy metals in sediment behind the Grand Coulee Dam. Cleaning up the contamination has been estimated at as much as $1 billion.

Teck Cominco Metals Ltd., operators of a lead and zinc smelter in Trail, British Columbia, had argued it should only be responsible for part of the cleanup, contending that other unidentified polluters should also contribute.

U.S. District Judge Lonny R. Suko ruled Wednesday that the company should pay for the cleanup if found liable for the pollution. A trial on that question is scheduled to begin Sept. 10 in Yakima.

Teck Cominco still could file claims against other companies to help pay for cleanup, Assistant Attorney General Kelly Wood said, but the government now won’t have to “eat that cost” if those other companies no longer are operating or viable.

Teck Cominco is aware of the ruling and reviewing it with legal counsel, according to Marcia Smith, the company’s senior vice president for sustainability and external affairs.

“It is important to note that these proceedings are still at an early stage,” Smith said in an email. “Further, despite these rulings, we are encouraged by the results of our ongoing studies into environmental conditions in the Upper Columbia River.”

Teck Cominco is one of Canada’s largest mining companies, and its lead-zinc smelter 10 miles north of the U.S. border is among the largest of its kind in the world. However, state and federal authorities contend the company and its predecessors discharged mining waste into the river for decades.

That waste then flowed into Washington, causing significant heavy metal contamination in Lake Roosevelt, a 150-mile stretch of the Columbia River from Grand Coulee Dam to the Canadian border.

A decade ago, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to assess contamination in the reservoir. In 2003, the EPA decided that Teck Cominco was subject to the U.S. Superfund law, because releases from the smelter had traveled down the river into the United States.

The agency demanded the company pay for studies to determine the extent of the contamination, and then clean it up.

The tribes filed suit in 2004, and the state joined the lawsuit as an intervener.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), which was created by the three countries to help implement the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, says the report is its most accurate representation yet of the current state of pollution on the continent.

“We have a more complete reporting right now,” said Orlando Cabrera, the commission’s program manager for air-quality pollutant releases, citing the fact that more companies are reporting their pollution levels.

“We have made an integrated database available. With this, we will be able to assess whether this information is good or bad news.”

Pollution levels from Canada, Mexico and the United States decreased to 4.9 billion kilograms from 5.7 billion kilograms, says the report, titled Taking Stock 2009.

“When you look at the emission report between 2005 and 2009, you see a slight decrease in emissions,” Cabrera said.

“However, in some countries there is no change, or a slight one either up or down. We are somewhat spread across the board.”

In previous years, some companies did not report their emissions either because of the size of their operations at the time or for not meeting the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register’s criteria, a national database that gathers data from the individual country, assesses the numbers, deals with any compliance issues and reports to the CEC; this skewed some of the data.

“We just collect and integrate the information from the three countries, and flag to them any data quality issues that we may encounter,” Cabrera said.

That element of uncertainty is shown dramatically in the report when it comes to Canadian mining operations.

In 2009, mining led to the release of almost 430 million kilograms of hydrogen sulphide, a flammable gas that, if ingested, can cause symptoms from headaches to respiratory-tract infections, the report said.

However, one unnamed gasprocessing facility in British Columbia accounted for “almost 100 per cent” of the total amount of the gas released, the report found.

If that company hadn’t reported its data, the measure would have been wildly inaccurate.

“In 2006, many of the mining facilities were not able to report to us,” Cabrera said. “Now they reflect in the report. It does not mean there were no emissions before, they were just not required to report on what they were seeing.”

Although the report said pollution released into the water and air has been reduced since 2005, the toxins are a concern, it said.

In 2009, 257 different pollutants were let into the water and 444 pollutants into the air, the report said. These pollutants ranged from nitrate compounds to hydrochloric and sulphuric acids.

“Even relatively small releases into water of heavy metals and their compounds, such as lead, nickel and cadmium, have the potential to be extremely toxic to human health and the aquatic environment,” the report said.

“These compounds transform in the atmosphere in the presence of water and contribute to the formation of acid rain.”

Cabrera said in previous years, water has been the main focus. Today, specific changes over time will be examined.

“We have to look at both the reductions that are happening and whether or not it is progress in creating less harmful fuels or innovations in prevention,” Cabrera said.

Talking about the rise in number of cancer patients among children, Dr Shilin Shukla, director, Gujarat Cancer Research Institute (GCRI), said that this had been noticed for some time.

“Till 8-10 years back, we used to receive 500-600 cases of cancer in children. This has now doubled. Now we have nearly 1000 cases,” he said. However, he expressed doubts that the number of children afflicted by the disease in AMC area had risen threefold in the last one year. “This statistic is surprising. It is possible that the same children who were found to have cancer last year again got included in this year’s data. The data needs to be verified,” Shukla said.

He also said that the rise in number of cases may be indicative of increased awareness among people that cancer is curable if diagnosed early. “Moreover, the state government, through its school health programme, does check-ups annually. This helps in diagnosing new cases at an early stage,” he said.

When asked for the likely reasons for the rise in cancer cases, Shukla said no scientific study had been undertaken yet to find the reason.

“However, cancers of the body surface that are found in elderly people are generally not found in children. Most children with malignancy have cancer of some internal organ. One possible reason for rise in such cancers could be pollution and the increased use of pesticides,” Shukla said. Oncologist Dr Parimal Jivarajani seemed to agree with Shukla’s views. “Research is still going on to find out what causes cancer. But the rise in the number of schoolchildren suffering from cancer in Ahmedabad and Bharuch points the finger at pollution and chemicals in food as the likely causes,” Jivarajani said.

Guinness Anchor Berhad (GAB) Foundation, for instance, has a project called “Working Actively Through Education and Rehabilitation” (Water).

Started in 2007, it reached a milestone in its effort to rehabilitate the 2.5km Sungai Way here, which was plagued by waste pollution.

Its director Renuka Indrarajah said the foundation worked with the Global Environment Centre (GEC) to install rubbish traps and grease traps along the river and implement the “river within river” approach whereby efforts were made to improve the river’s physical condition.

“The work done included habitat creation along the river banks and increasing bio-diversity.

“We also engaged the surrounding communities from Desa Mentari, Desa Ria, Kampung Lindungan, SS3 and SS9A,” she said yesterday, adding that the foundation received tremendous support from government agencies as well.

GAB foundation also organises various community activities, which centre on good habits such as recycling and composting.

The river, said Indrarajah, had seen much improvement after three years, which included a dramatic decrease in pollution and better water quality after being too polluted to be able to support living organisms.

“We can also see signs of living creatures in the river and its surrounding areas,” she said.

Indrarajah said people do not realise that some of the monsoon drains in cities such as Petaling Jaya were actually concretised rivers.

“So, keeping drains clean is also an important part of protecting the water source. Water from drains flows into rivers. Polluted drains will lead to polluted rivers as well,” she said.