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Sad stuff:
When Johann Strauss gazed upon Europe's grandest waterway 140 years ago, it inspired him to compose the Blue Danube Waltz, went on to become an unofficial anthem of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Today, the river that flows beneath the bridges of the Hungarian capital is anything but blue. Befouled with sewage, fertilizers, and industrial waste, the opaque, brown Danube has become a drainage canal for half a continent, so poisonous that it has devastated life in the Black Sea, which lies at the end of the 1,800-mile long river.
