But the world around men like Mr Lamhoud is changing: there's a fence along the river Evros now.
There's no magic in the Yangtse River any more than the Volga, Rhine or Hudson.
Coal ash is captured before it can escape at a smoke stack into the air, it's channeled into ponds near the river and contained there by earthen dikes.
"In the 1980's somebody came to me and said that there was a new creature in the river Nile, " says Khalil.
Rachel McDonald, the pub's owner, said there was "lots of mud everywhere" and said the river had been blocked by a fallen tree trunk.
Samples in 1999 from fall chinook salmon in the Columbia River's Hanford Reach show that four-fifths of the females spawning there apparently began life as males.
"There's no question in my mind there will be a suburban development within five years on the other side of the river, " said Weerts.
There are separate plans which could also see the river's listed Swing Bridge illuminated.
There has been a healthy academic debate over the world's longest river for some years and the claim from Brazil may not go unchallenged.
There are river channels and flood plains galore on the planet's surface, and even a hemisphere-wide depression that many interpret as an ocean bed.
There are few river paths, and they are poorly linked to the capital's streets.
"There is definitely something going on that's affecting people on the Canadian side of the river, " he said.
It's going to dredge the Hudson River to scrape up poisonous chemicals it dumped there years ago.
In an unusual step, there are no advance ticket sales for The River - which will run in the Court's small upstairs theatre from 18 October.
"Each network doesn't have to have its own man or woman on the scene at every river that overflows its banks, every border where there's a skirmish, every town up and down the coast battening down for a hurricane, " Hewitt said Thursday at the Frank Gannett Lecture series at the Freedom Forum.
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