Ahh picturesque Anchorage, Alaska! Surrounded by beautiful mountains, teeming with wildlife, and right next to a giant toilet bowl. Wait, what?

As adults, most of us do not like to get caught up in fantasy. We don't put lost teeth under our pillows and we know who leaves the presents under the tree. But there is a little pretend story we tell ourselves every time we put something nasty down the drain.

It just disappears, right? I mean, of course, some government someone somewhere --the EPA or the DEC or the FBI or whoever-- must be keeping an eye on things to make sure nothing bad happens. But in general, for most of us, it's out of sight, out of mind.

That's the way of thinking that keeps us from coming up with a better long-term plan to deal with the tons of pollution we dump in Cook Inlet every day. Think doo in the snow is gross? Try this: salty, oily run-off from city streets, runway de-icer and tons of filtered and chlorinated sewer discharge. Now imagine it marinating your halibut steaks.

This is our approach to waste water here. It has not changed much in 30 years.

Let us take a little trip down the drain. What you flush travels through a series of pipes until it reaches the waste water treatment plant at Point Woronzof. When it gets there, it goes through what is called "primary treatment." A big screen filters larger solids. Then the water goes to big basins, where floating material is skimmed off, and sludge is removed from the bottom. All that stuff gets incinerated. Heavy grit and incineration ash goes to the landfill. As one of the guys at the plant explained it to me, you got your "floaties," your "sinkies" and your "lurkers."

Sewage marinated halibut steaks! I bet your mouth is simply watering at the very thought. Or is it your eyes that are watering?

I know what some of you anti-regulation guys are thinking. "Oh c'mon they took the turds out and treated it with chlorine so how bad can it be?"

What lurks once you get rid of all that floats and sinks? Water soluble pollutants like detergents and chemicals, particles of decomposing human waste and bacteria. That "effluent," as it is called, gets chlorinated and heads out into the inlet. The liquid is relatively clear, but it has more decomposing material in it than what is being discharged almost everywhere else in America. Piping it into Cook Inlet is legal thanks to a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency we've been getting renewed for the last three decades. We're in another renewal process right now.

In other words just because you can't see it does not mean it is not there. Sure it LOOKS clean but in reality it is simply chock full of chemicals, excreted pharmaceuticals, and estrogen from birth control pills. Yes you heard me ESTROGEN! And that estrogen is absorbed by the fish which is then eaten by the families of these fishermen.

Personally I have refused to eat fish caught in and around Anchorage for almost twenty years. I like my fish the old fashioned way, sewage free and delicious. Not filled with anti-depressants and man-boob causing estrogen.

We have treated our inlet like a cesspool for almost a hundred years now, isn't it time that we started to take responsibility for ourselves? Or at the very least, our poop?

(You can read the rest of Julia O'Malley's very informative article by clicking the title.)

Update: Dennis Zaki read my post and sent me this.

Alaska Timelapses from Dennis Zaki on Vimeo.

It just goes to show that even our polluted waterways are freaking beautiful. Too bad they are not as healthy as they look.