Understanding the Importance of Water

Polluted water happens when toxins enter the water system, in the following ways.

* Get dissolved
* Suspended in the water
* Lie in the sediment.

Polluted water is caused by industrial dumping, sewage, intense farming and individuals, polluted water shows up in all types of water including wells streams reservoirs rivers and the ocean. Thoughtless acts of what can seem to be a cheap alternative (if you can call the planet cheap) occur in industry regularly, toxins including chemicals and heavy-metals are flushed into the rivers, streams and lakes causing polluted water.

Some examples of water pollution are:

The Asopos River in Greece should provide fresh water for a town on its banks but it runs red and/or purple due to the many different industries upstream dumping toxic chemicals into the river polluting water, it is unfit to drink, however the citizens have little choice. In China some Rivers are flowing contaminated, one is red and foamy with ammonia nitrogen and permanganate, China could be facing a water shortage, partly due to polluted water. According to the world health organization, the Indus River contains high amounts of pollutants due to industrial waste it is unfit for drinking. Bristol-Myers pharmaceutical company has continuously polluted waters of lake Syracuse pumping it with toxins, hopefully their huge fine will help stop this behavior. Peoples in Japan have died due to mercury poisoning from eating contaminated fish caught off their coast, and significant amount of ground water has been found contaminated in India, large amounts of pesticides have polluted groundwater, only small amount of their waste water is treated. More than a third of America's rivers and Lakes are to polluted for fishing or swimming, there are millions of cases of water born diseases and deaths a year due to polluted water, carelessly discarded waste materials especially toxic ones have detrimental effect on any ecosystem that they enter, and then there is the oil sands project in Alberta it uses around 175 million liters of water a day this water is contaminated with many chemicals and is not reusable, this toxic soup is then stored in huge toxic waste ponds posing a threat to our environment ecosystems and wildlife.

So what do we do with the waste we produce? Can we find a ways to neutralize waste before it enters the ecosystem? Where it is possible not producing waste in the first place, efficient sewage processing plants are hard at work in many parts of the world, however sewage plants do not process water that goes down storm drains, industrial waste dumped directly in to water systems (especially that of the oil sands project).

Polluted water is found all around the globe, the Earth is three quarters water, less than 1% of that is fresh, the water that we use today is the same water that was used millions of years ago, it's all connected, the planet has effectively been recycling it, but for how long can Earth sustain life with increasing amounts of polluted water?

Historically the preferred method for disposal of sewage has been to dump it into the ocean, large quantities of plastic debris, also ends up in the ocean, beaches are often closed due to polluted water, 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen are pumped into the gulf of Mexico causing areas of eutrophication and hypoxia. In California agriculture and cattle are included as a source of nitrate pollution affecting groundwater. Oklahoma has problems from excessive pig farming as they create a poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas from their waste lagoon's, that suffer leaks and lethal spills. There are thousands of manufacturing facilities worldwide using water to carry away waste, infecting streams lakes and oceans, compounds can include asbestos phosphates nitrate mercury, lead sulfuric acid, caustic soda, sulfuric acid and petrochemicals. Thermal pollution with hot water from cooling towers is also a problem, this hot water waste is an inefficient use of power as the energy used to heat the water is lost, it could be harnessed.

Cruise ships holding thousands of people dump enormous amounts of very unsanitary waste water into the seas daily, affecting the oceans ecosystem greatly, there needs to be a solution for this water pollution, some major cruise lines have installed illegal bypass lines, depositing oil, sewage, garbage and other hazardous toxic wastes into the oceans and waterways, it is not only the cruise ships that dump waste overboard, causing polluted water.

By J Barton