Qasr el Yahud, Israel — It’s a typical day here on the banks of the Jordan River. Under a late October desert sun, pilgrims from around the world descend from their tour buses.

An American church group pauses to pray where the Bible says Jesus Christ was baptized. A German choir group breaks into a hymn. Russian women donning white robes submerge themselves in the river’s still, brown waters. A French woman fills two plastic bottles with the supposed holy water to pour over the heads of babies in baptismal ceremonies back home.

What many of these religious tourists don’t know is that this water, at one of Christianity’s holiest sites, is contaminated by sewage. Government officials are well aware of the