The Democrat-run city of Philadelphia has a long-running raw sewage problem, and little is being done to rectify it.

The Delaware River watershed has been under scrutiny for a decade and provides drinking water and recreational opportunities for folks in both Philly and Camden County on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River.

A new study from the Penn Environment and Research Center claimed that roughly 60% of Philadelphia is served by a “combined sewer system, where stormwater and sewage flow through the same pipes beneath city streets.”

Heavy rainfall, however, can overwhelm the system, leaking untreated raw sewage into waterways.

Richest most powerful nation on Earth still can’t manage its sewage: “Philadelphia discharges 12.7 billion gallons of raw, diluted sewage into the Delaware River’s watershed each year. Five decades after the Clean Water Act mandated that waterways be made safe for swimming and… pic.twitter.com/9XcmBHlajw

— Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) October 29, 2025

Philadelphia had at least one drain that overflowed an average of 65 days/year between 2016 and 2024, according to a Daily Mail summary of the report.

That means 12.7 billion gallons of raw sewage mixed with stormwater were seeping into Philly waterways during that time frame. Camden County fared worse, with overflows occurring 76 days/year during the same time frame, the Daily Mail reported.

Researchers from the study remain hopeful and pointed to Portland, Oregon, as a success model.

“While the task of cleaning the Delaware is daunting, there is reason for hope. Some cities have already vanquished massive sewage pollution to make their rivers much cleaner,” the study read.

“Infrastructure investments in Portland, Oregon, mean that combined sewer overflow events are infrequent, sometimes more than a year apart, compared to a previous average of 50 annually [34].”

Something tells me taxes in Philadelphia will be going up.

Meanwhile, X users weighed in on the study:

Quite unbelievable how much people don’t care about this. Where I live no one is bothered that they can’t eat the fish they catch or drink well water because of high atrazine and chemicals in all of our water.

— Melissa Antonacci (@MelissaAntonac) October 29, 2025

This is actually very on-brand for the region. A hitchhiking robot got Catherine-wheel’ed for the lulz and its corpse was left on the side of the road. People launch batteries at children with improvised atlatls for wearing the wrong jersey. Santa Claus got assaulted on live TV.

— MAXIMUMCLEARANCE (@MaxClearanceVG) October 29, 2025

They only enforce the Clean Water Act upon private business, not upon government.

— Pat ❌ (@blythesylph) October 29, 2025

Like many American cities, Philly chased out its most competent and loyal citizens with high taxes and violent crime.

— truthandtoleranceblog (@truthandto65884) October 29, 2025

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