Worldwide Contamination of Water Sources

contamination of water sources

Written by Adam Shake

The Worldwide contamination of Water Sources is a strategic threat to the global water system.

Some of the following information is written by Al Gore from his book “Earth In The Balance” and proper attribution and referencing will be enforced. The following bullet points are direct references from this source.

• PCB’s and DDT can be ecologically dangerous even in small amounts.  The Russian environmentalist Alexei Yablokov has pointed out that some powerful pesticides can cause behavioral changes in animals in extremely low concentration.
• One of the most visible contaminants in the oceans and inland river systems is oil spills. But far more impacting that the big ones that we all know of, are the numerous smaller spills that take place, unnoticed, every year.  The result of all this oil is the damage of the ultra-thin membrane on the ocean’s surface – called the neuston – which plays a crucial role in capturing and stabilizing the food supply for phytoplankton, which begin the food chain.
• Different bodies of water cleanse themselves at widely varying rates. Turbulent  waters turn over quickly, but the Baltic Sea for example is replenished only once every eighty years.  The pollution dumped into the Baltic by the tsars still mingles with the toxic contaminants dumped there by the Bolsheviks.
• The Clean Water Act of 1972 has reduced pollution levels in the United States, but in some of our older cities, when it rains, the sewage treatment facilities cannot handle the combined volume of waste water (human sewage) and water runoff.  The two are then combined and dumped untreated into creeks rivers and the ocean.
• In the Soviet Union, where virtually no progress has been made, rivers still catch fire.
• Water pollution in Eastern Europe is so bad that the Vistula River in Poland can not even be used to cool factory machinery.
• Globally, more than 1.7 billion people do not have an adequate supply of safe drinking water while more than 3 billion people do not have proper sanitation and are thus at risk of having their water contaminated.
• In India, one hundred and fourteen towns dump their human waste directly into the Ganges.
• Four out of every five common diseases in developing countries are caused either by dirty water or lack of sanitation.
• Water-borne diseases cause an average of 25,000 deaths a day.

It’s hard to wrap you’re head around some of these fact’s.  Let’s face it, if we live in the United States we have got it pretty good.  So what does this mean to us?  How does it affect you personally?  If you’re only interest is how it effect’s you personally, then you should probably go back to playing you’re video games or watching the ball game on the flat screen.  If you would like to know what you can do to help stop this downward spiral that will someday affect this country, then please read on.

Oil only belongs one place.  That’s in the ground.  It doesn’t belong in our water supplies.  It doesn’t belong in out atmosphere as carbon after it’s been burned in our cars. It’s in the air we breath and it’s in the water we drink.  If you follow the domino effect of it’s use, it kills plants, animals and humans alike.  Every single day.  But we want it and we want it as cheap as possible, so we keep finding ways of getting more of it out of the ground.

But what we should be doing is finding ways to power our lives with a better alternative.  Something like the wind or sun. Have you ever heard of a wind spill?  Or a Sun spill?  You will also never hear the phrases like  “Lack of Sun, World Sun Demand, Sun Spill, No War for Sun, Sun speculators driving up the price of Sun…” How do we drive the market toward “renewable” resources?  By cutting back on fossil fuels.  We need to continue to show the government that there is money to be made with alternative energies and money to be lost with fossil fuels.

We need to stop buying produce that’s over sprayed with chemicals and fertilizers. It’s these chemicals and fertilizers that make their way into the water system, killing the ecosystem all the way down the Mississippi River and causing a “dead zone” in the gulf of Mexico.  It’s from this water that we are drinking in and playing in.  Buy Organic.  Buy Local. Visit your Farmers Markets.

We need to pick up our own trash.  I’ve cleaned the trash off riverbanks and creek beds that has washed off streets and into the sewers.  Nothing can live in these creeks and rivers.

We need to stop thinking that we have “Dominion” over the earth and start realizing that we must treat the earth with stewardship.  Yes, we can take some things from the earth, because the earth is self healing.  But we can not take to much, and then demand even more.

Alter the Eco and keep up the good fight,

Adam


To receive updates to Twilight Earth, press the Orange button in the header at the top of this page.

Related posts:

1. Hilarious Water Commercial – Cummulus, Tears of a Cloud!
2. Utilizing Gray Water, by “The Organic Architect” and “The Good Mix”
3. Bottled 3k Yr Old Water, Drilled straight from the Glacier. Um Yeah.