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Deteriorating pipes, overwhelmed by volumes of water they werenever designed to carry, release billions of gallons of raw sewageinto rivers and streams each year. The spills make people sick,threaten local drinking water and kill aquatic animals and plants.

Hundreds of municipal sewer authorities have been fined for spillssince 2003, according to a Gannett News Service analysis of EPAdata.

And dozens of local governments have agreed to spend billionsmodernizing failing wastewater systems over the next 10 to 20years. Many of those projects will be financed by rate increases.

But the improvements can't keep up with problems affecting thethousands of miles of sewer pipes snaking underground through eachcommunity. Foul-smelling waste gurgles from manholes and gushesdown streams and rivers somewhere in the United States almost everyday.

In March, between 700,000 and 1.3 million gallons of human fecesand other waste spilled from a damaged pipe into Grand Lagoon atPanama City Beach, Fla.

In January, about 20 million gallons of sewage flowed intoPennsylvania's Schuylkill River after a 42-inch pipe ruptured nearReading, Pa.

That same month, heavy rain, deteriorating pipes and operator errorcombined to send about 5 million gallons of sewage into NorthernCalifornia's Richardson and San Francisco bays.

"When people flush their toilets, they think the sewage is going tothe treatment plant, and that's where they deserve to have it go,"said Nancy Stoner, a project director at the Natural ResourcesDefense Council, which says the government isn't doing enough topolice sewage overflows.

GNS analyzed enforcement and compliance records compiled by theEnvironmental Protection Agency and some state regulators betweenJanuary 2003 and February this year. The analysis found: At least one-third of the nation's large, publicly owned sewagetreatment systems have been penalized by the EPA or stateregulators for sewage spills or other violations. The penaltiesincluded fines and orders to fix problems or expand treatmentcapacity.

That doesn't mean other sewer systems are problem-free. Federal andstate environmental officials say they target sewer systems withongoing overflows that come to regulators' attention throughroutine inspections, complaints or large spills that generateheadlines. Total fines amounted to $35 million. The fines were assessedagainst 494 of the nation's 4,200 municipal facilities that treatat least 1 million gallons of sewage daily. In addition, somestates have levied penalties that aren't included in the data. Cities with the largest fines included San Diego, $6.2 million; NewYork, $3 million; Los Angeles, $1.6 million; and Pittsburgh, $1.2million.

"The word is out," said Mark Pollins, the EPA's director of WaterEnforcement. "Enforcement is alive and well."

EPA officials estimate 850 billion gallons of storm water mixedwith raw sewage pour into U.S. waters every year from systems, somebuilt in the 19th and early 20th centuries, that are designed tooverflow in wet weather.

An additional 3 billion to 10 billion gallons of raw sewage spillaccidentally every year from systems designed to carry only sewage,according to the EPA. Those spills are caused by numerous factors,including improper connections, clogs caused by debris,construction accidents and cracks in aging pipes.

As many as 5,500 people get sick every year from direct exposure topollutants discharged from sewer overflows near beaches, the EPAestimates.

Sewage also can get into drinking water. In one 1993 case inMilwaukee, more than 400,000 people got sick and more than 100 diedafter the cryptosporidium parasite contaminated drinking watertaken from Lake Michigan. A study published in the New EnglandJournal of Medicine suggested untreated sewage in the lake couldhave been the culprit.

EPA officials say water quality has gotten better in manycommunities that have improved their sewer systems.

Elsewhere, regulators and lawsuits filed by citizens have pressuredlocal governments into agreeing to costly, complex modernizationprojects that in some cases will take more than a generation tocomplete.

Pittsburgh's Allegheny County Sanitary Authority, for example, hasagreed to eliminate dozens of "outfalls" that discharge sewagemixed with storm water directly into rivers and streams. Theproject could cost about $3 billion over the next 20 years.

"We're not alone," Arletta Scott Williams, executive director atPittsburgh's wastewater treatment plant on the Ohio River, toldhomeowners attending a town hall meeting last fall. "It isnationwide. There's nowhere near enough money, and there's no potwhere it's going to come from."

Ratepayers certainly will be asked to help foot much of the bill.

In Louisville, Ky., residential sewer rates jumped 30 percent lastyear to help finance an $800 million sewer renovation program thatwon't be completed until 2024.

"We don't have any recourse," Louisville resident Roseanne Southardsaid as officials prepared to approve the increase. "These agenciesall want more money, and I'm not making any more."

The nation's public wastewater treatment plants and sewagecollection systems need about $350 billion to $500 billion over thenext 20 years for repairs and expansion, according to estimatesfrom the National Association of Clean Water Agencies. The tradegroup based the estimates on figures from the EPA and other federalagencies.

This year, the federal government has budgeted $687 million forwastewater improvement, according to the National Association ofClean Water Agencies.

One modernization project alone, in Indianapolis, could cost $1.2billion. Residents hope the repairs will end years of smelly andunsightly problems along Fall Creek.

"I have walked this area on numerous occasions and could seecondoms decorating bushes where the water level had been high(and), feminine hygiene products along the shores, toilet paperhanging in bushes," said Richard Van Frank, a local environmentalactivist and retired biochemist.

Legislation that would require sewer authorities to notify thepublic of overflows and spills is pending in Congress.

One environmental group, American Rivers, uses humor and a "Spillof the Week" Web blog to encourage support for a nationwide publicnotification law.

"We try to be a little snarky about this," said Josh Klein, acampaign coordinator for American Rivers. "After all, we're talkingabout poop. But it is a serious issue."

Contributing: Robert Benincasa, GNS, and Dan Klepal, The(Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal.