Water Quality
Did you know that everything we do can affect someone’s water, somewhere? It can! For example, every ounce of gold that is produced, a nearly equal amount of mercury is emitted into the environment. There is also about 2 MILLION tons of sewage, industrial and agricultural waste is discharged into the world’s water every day, just from people doing everyday activities.
Below are some interesting facts about water quality and pollution, some of which may not directly relate to you, but are still pretty interesting:
1. Storm Water flows directly into streams with no treatment, this means that the massive amount of fertilizer you put on your lawn yesterday will eventually wash into the ocean without being treated (And by the way, your lawn only needs a certain amount of fertilizer, putting more than necessary on there won’t make it greener, it will just runoff and pollute the world’s water)
2. Small amounts of pollution do add up, if an entire neighborhood puts too much fertilizer on their lawn, each of them thinking that they can’t make that big of a difference, IT WILL POLLUTE OUR OCEANS.
3. Failing septic systems pollute, and nobody wants poop in their water.
4. Soap is a pollutant, when you wash your car; try to do so on the grass, or at a commercial carwash.
5. Oil and Antifreeze pollute too. If your car leaks these onto cement, rain will come by and wash into the storm drain and eventually wind up in our oceans.
6. Pet waste pollutes, again, no one wants poop in their water.
7. Lawn clippings are another source of pollution; they act as fertilizer in streams and then cause too much plant growth (which deprives the fish of oxygen).
8. Littering pollutes. It can be washed away in to our streams and oceans.
9. The impermeable surface of a city block generates five times more runoff than a plot of woods that is the same size.
10. The water/sanitation crisis claims more lives than any war ever has.
11. The average American that takes a five minute shower uses more water than a person living in a developing country slum would in a single day.
Facts from:
http://www.cityofbremerton.com/content/sw_waterpollutionfacts.html
http://water.epa.gov/aboutow/owow/waterqualityfacts.cfm
http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/
Our water quality report! You may recognize it from the mail a few months ago…
http://www.guc.com/client_resources/publications/wqr2011.pdf
Links to NC’s cities and their water quality reports:
http://cfpub.epa.gov/safewater/ccr/index.cfm?action=ccrsearchresults&page=viewAll
How to read a water quality report:
http://www.thefactsaboutwater.org/what-s-my-water-quality/