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(Undated-AP) -- The health of the Colorado River is at stake.
Conservation groups say radioactive runoff, toxic rocket-fuel chemicals and human waste threaten the river.
The conservation group American Rivers has put the Colorado at the top of its list of rivers at risk.
The 14-hundred-mile Colorado is the nation's most endangered river for 2004.
Conservationists cited three pollution sources that dump (m) millions of gallons of contaminated water into the river each year.
They are an abandoned uranium-tailings site on the river's bank just outside Moab.
A defunct war-munitions complex near Las Vegas that spews a rocket-fuel additive into Lake Mead.
And finally, septic-tank systems in river communities and leach into the river.
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List of Endangered Rivers:
- Colorado River. Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California.
- Big Sunflower River. Mississippi.
- Snake River. Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
- Tennessee River. Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky.
- Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.
- Spokane River. Idaho and Washington.
- Housatonic River. Massachusetts and Connecticut.
- Peace River. Florida.
- Big Darby Creek. Ohio.
- Mississippi River. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois,
Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
