A recent Minnesota Pollution Control Agency report says what we&8217;ve known for years: that dumping raw sewage into lakes and rivers is a terrible idea.

According to the report, almost 100 small communities, including 29 in southern Minnesota, are piping untreated toilet wastes into waterways via &8220;straight pipes.&8221;

In rural communities, it&8217;s an archaic practice that&8217;s been going on since man first settled in the state; but like all destructive practices, it needs to be eliminated.

For many years, local media have pointed to the problem of some landowners in Lansing Township piping waste into the Cedar River &8212; the same Cedar River that runs through the center of Austin and rural areas to the south.

Many communities throughout the state &8212; 105 since the 1990s &8212; have fixed pollution problems by enforcing the wastewater regulations that have been in place since 1972.

It&8217;s time for Mower County and other counties in southern Minnesota to step up and do the same.

&8212; Austin Daily Herald, Feb. 27