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Water's water everywhere

Twenty million gallons and counting. It's so big and so awful it's hard to get your mind around it. But there are other water woes closer to home, so if you're feeling powerless in the face of the problem down south, take a look in your backyard.

So the latest attempt (I've kinda lost count but I think it's around the 327th) to stop the BP oil spill has resulted in failure like all the others, and the devasatation this disaster is causing in the Gulf of Mexico (and, very soon, elsewhere) has now progressed beyond the "epic" stage to... whatever comes after "epic."

Twenty-two million gallons and counting. It's so big and so awful it's hard to get your mind around it. But there are other water woes closer to home, so if you're feeling powerless in the face of the problem down south, take a look in your backyard. As CNN reports today

A U.S. conservation group released a list Wednesday of what it says are America's 10 most endangered rivers, which face man-made threats from gas drilling and new dams to outdated flood management. The list and accompanying report from American Rivers highlights the threats facing each waterway and urges the public to act to protect them.

And again we have a dubious distinction at #1: The most threatened of all Rivers in the country is the Upper Delaware River, which provides drinking water for 17 million people. "Natural gas drilling in the area threatens the river as a clean water source," the folks at American Rivers note in the article.

This concept, in general, is nothing new to Earth to Philly readers. Still, the #1 status brings something of an increased urgency to our regional issues, and if you care about clean water you may want to act while there is still time to do something about it. The American Rivers site has a handy page where you can contact "decision-makers" - in this case Carol Collier, Executive Director of the Delaware River Basin Commission, and make your voice heard. But in the interest of clean water for the future you should also educate yourself about where our drinking water is going and the most effective ways to reduce your water footprint.

Whether or not we arrive soon at a point where clean drinking water is as scarce in North America as it is in some impverished areas of the globe, it's clear that we need to start protecting it. Come on - water we waiting for?