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Water pollution is increasingly becoming a large problem that we as humans need to confront. Water is our most valuable resource. Just think of how much we humans are dependent upon clean water. Water is way more valuable than gold, what can you go a day, week, year with out, gold or water? Besides the fact that we drink the water, we use it for irrigation of farm fields, cooking, washing clothes, flushing toilets, etc. and every industrial process requires water to function. Everyone knows that the Earths surface is covered by 70% water, so why fuss of protecting water? Only 3% of all water is fresh and drinkable and of that 3%, 75% is frozen, which leaves a grand total of only 1% of the Earths surface water that is readily available for consumption. After taking that fact into account, one can see why the conservation and protection of our remaining water supply is so vital. Before water pollution can be stopped, the sources of the pollution must be known.
The major sources of water pollution are organic pollution, agricultural pollution, runoff, toxic waste, and thermal pollution. Organic pollution is becoming more and more pressing on the environment, because of the growing population of the world. ... The sewage plants do their best, but the secondary discharge that gets into the water supply causes great problems. ... Everyone has been in a lake where there is a lot of dead algae on the shore and the water is clouded with algae. This situation is known as eutrophication, where algae growth is out of control and the water becomes oxygen depleted. There are natural cycles of eutrophication in the spring and fall, but the body of water can deal with those amounts. When excess waste is added to the water the body of water can no longer control the growth of the algae and the water soon becomes algae ridden and oxygen depleted. The water becomes oxygen depleted, because the dead algae goes to the bottom and uses the oxygen in the deeper water to decompose, but if there is too much dead algae all the oxygen is depleted. Oxygen from the surface doesnt reach the bottom, because the warmer water is less dense than the deeper cooler water, therefor the warmer water floats on the colder water and they never mix, much like oil and water. ...
Eutrophication effects all bodies of water, great and small. In the summer of 1971 at the Chicago South Water Filtration Plant on the coast of Lake Michigan, the filters were clogged with so much algae it had to be removed by hand.
Approximate Word count = 2124
Approximate Pages = 8.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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