IMPEACH BUSH

A citizens group in San Francisco wants to pay an ironic tribute to President George W Bush when he leaves office - by naming a sewage plant after him.

The group, calling itself the Presidential Memorial Committee of San Francisco, wants the issue voted on at this November's election.

"It's important to remember our leaders in the right historical context," said petition organiser Brian McConnell.

The Republican Party thinks the plan stinks, and it will fight the measure.

Mr McConnell's group has submitted more than 12,000 signatures on a petition to the San Francisco Department of Elections.

If at least 7,168 of those signatures are found to be valid, the question of whether to rename Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant after the outgoing president will be added to the ballot papers in November.

"In President Bush's case, we think that we will be cleaning up a substantial mess for the next 10 or 20 years," said Mr McConnell.

"The sewage treatment facility's job is to clean up a mess, so we think it's a fitting tribute."

'Ashamed'

But one Californian Republican, Patrick Dorinson, said the plan was "a horrible idea".

"This is why San Francisco is considered wacky," the former California Republican Party spokesman told the Associated Press.

"It makes me ashamed to be a San Franciscan if this is all they've got time to do."

And a city official stressed that Oceanside offered "extraordinary environmental benefits".

"That's not our understanding of what the authors of this initiative believe the current president has delivered," said Tony Winnicker of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Mr Bush will leave office in January 2009.