This creative nonfiction thesis tells a story of how water turns into waste. With Portland, Oregon as a base, the reader visits a wastewater treatment plant, several buried and lost streams, a high-tech sewage processor, stormwater education classes, a stormwater management conference, several "green" streets, sewage construction zones, and sewage-related parks. The thesis explores how Western sewage systems came to be, and how wastewater management might change in the future.