(from Biswajeet Banerjee, writer for the Associated Press)
<>"Thousands of Hindu holy men threatened Monday to boycott ceremonies at a weeks-long pilgrimage to wash away their sins in the Ganges, saying the divine river was too polluted.The saffron-clad, ash-smeared holy men, or sadhus, gathered at the fair grounds in Allahabad to demand the state of the waters be improved by Jan. 12, the date of the next great immersion. Allahabad, the venue of the "Ardh Kumbh Mela" or Half Grand Pitcher festival, is nearly 120 miles southeast of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
"Millions of people are taking baths in this river because Hindus consider the Ganges a pious river," said Hari Chaitanaya Brahmachari, a leading Hindu holy man and head of a local monastery. "But the fact is they are taking a dip not in river water but in effluents discharged from factories."
Nearly 70 million Hindus are expected to participate in the 45-day festival, one of the largest regular gatherings in the world. They bathe in the waters of the Ganges in the belief that it washes away their sins and ends the process of reincarnation.
However the waters have become polluted, both by the recent offerings of flowers and food cast in by millions of pilgrims and by years of contamination as industries have dumped waste and cities pumped sewage into the river."
Here's another very informative article: India's Sullied River Goddess.