I've been reading both sides of this argument and I'd like to add my two
cents....(IE, not worth much).

The arguement seems to waver around the FACT (bold type because it is a
fact) that fish and other animals deficate in the water.

The arguement is that if most people consider water that is full of natural
feces to be "clean", then a little of their own will not harm anything.

The water ways and oceans have a considerable ability to clean themselves
and not only does the natural feces exist, it can benifit the enviroment by
adding to the food chain.

The problem starts when the natural balances get out of balance.

As an example, put the recomended amount of fertilizer on your garden and
your flowers and vegetables should grow and produce better, but put 10 or
100 times of the recomended amount of fertilizer on your garden and your
yield is not 10 or 100 times better, instead the ground is "burned",
nothing will grow. The plants that needed the fertilizer and used the
fertilizer can no longer live on the over fertilized soil and it will be
many years before it will be possible to use that soil again.

Water flowing down from a mountain top is very clean, even though fish are
crapping in it (lots of water, few fish), later it goes through a pasture
with some cattle in it and it is less clean (still lots of water, but now
more crap), it then goes by the Coors plant (not trying to pick on them) and
now it is even less clean (water, crap, and some beer), the water is still
considered almost pure because there are very small percentages of crap and
beer. It then goes to a town and after being treated with clorine, flourine
and other chemicals it is used as fresh water, it then gets more crap added,
more chemicals, some treatment and is discharged back into the stream. Many
towns and cities later it reaches the Ocean, I doubt if there are very many
people in this group who would be willing to walk down to the river bank
close to where it reaches the Ocean and have several large glasses of river
water.

So now the water has reached the Ocean, it is a much higher level of crap,
chemicals and other polution in it than the water did 200 years ago did, and
what do we find on the edge of the Ocean? Some of our biggest cities,
producing even more polution, crap and chemicals.

So if you look at the Ocean as a garden you can see that the natural cycle
would let it clean itself and even a little additional polution can be
tolerated, the problem is when the amounts get too high.

Early in WWII German submarines ravaged the East coast, this was even more
critical when you realize that at the time almost all of the oil for the
east coast was transported by ship. for years after WWII you could go to
most any east coast beach and dig down a few feet and find oil. Over time
all this oil has been cleaned up...by the Ocean, but it takes time, a lot of
time.

Have you ever driven down a highway and been disgusted by all the trash that
you see along the way? All that trash was not caused by one person (usually)
but instead was the product of a bunch of people thinking "there is already
some trash out there, one more piece won't matter".

"No one raindrop blames itself for the flood"

I wrote this because I want people to realize that the big question is "are
you adding to the problem, or are you adding to the solution" or
"a turd in the right place is fertilizer, a turd in the wrong place is
polution".

Eric