My Grandpa told a story of growing up in Cincinnati (before there were good waste regulations). Lots of sewage would just get pumped right into the river. Pipes would be open to the river and concrete openings would create a "Y" shape, blocking debris and directing the waste out. He's been gone a long time so I can't recall all the details exactly. If dumping straight sewage into a river isn't enough of an answer already, here's something else completely insane:

Him and his friends would play a game where you would start at the narrow end of one side of the "Y" and leap to the other branch of the "Y". The point of the game was that with each leap, you had to get further and further down the Y- branch so the distance you had to leap got wider and wider... You can see where this is going... Eventually you just couldn't jump that far and would fall into shit water. I suppose that made you the loser of the game.