Pollution of Groundwater, by: William R. Mason 1995
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Oc-Po/Pollution-of-Groundwater.html#b
Summary:
Almost half of the Untied States rely on groundwater for their everyday water needs. These areas in which we obtain our water are currently being polluted by us humans. A ground water pollutant is a substance that makes the water unclean. Many people believe that the soil and sediment act as a filter, and they think that if they pour chemicals or some other pollutant into the ground it wont be harmful. During the 1970's scientists found out that people were pouring chemicals into the ground and it was contaminating our ground water. It caused much damage and cost the water purification plants a lot of money to filter it from the aquifers. Some pollutants that people were pouring out were, fertilizers, pesticides, petroleum based fuels, and chlorinated solvents. There are current laws preventing people from depositing their waste into the ground. Some methods of clean up that are being used are, groundwater extraction wells, bioremediation, and treating the water at its point of use. They all serve the same purpose of removing the pollutants.
Opinion:
I believe that its terrible that people are to lazy to safely remove there waste safely, but instead choose to dump it into the ground. Its selfish because those people are contaminating the water we use and drink. If you think about it people in third world countries don't have any water to drink and here in the U.S. people are ruining perfectly good water, just because their to lazy to remove it safely. In addition the chemicals are not just bad for the groundwater, but there bad for the soil and organisms which are near the pollutants. Its also harming our government. Their spending so much of our tax- payers money to remove the chemicals, that we have no money left for our specific needs. This can all be prevented by removing, and not using bad chemicals safely. Questions:
1. Do you think more should be done to prevent people form depositing these chemicals into the ground?
2. How do you think these pollutants are affecting the water in which we drink?
3. Do you believe there should be ban's on dangerous chemicals such as pesticides, and chlorinated solvents?
4. Who should be responsible for cleaning our groundwater?
5. Who should pay for the removal of the pollutants in our groundwater?
Benjamin Kron, November 1st, 2012
My opinion on this article is that I think its crazy that half of the US relies on groundwater for everyday use. I think its awful that this is happening. But I think it's a good article and that more people should be aware of especially teenagers becuase this is going to really affect them in the future. In general I think the US is being lazy and greedy in a way by not taking the time to clean this water and remove the toxins and chemicals safely. Like Ben said there are countries and places that dont even have water to drink, but here we are ruining perfectly good water that could be used. This would tie in to class becuase we were talking about the world population and if this continues to happen we might run out of clean drinking water which could lead to death, war and decrease in world population.
ReplyDelete1.) Do you think that it is fair that we are paying taxes for this? why or why not?
2.) How would you feel if you lived in Africa and you didnt even have clean drinking water and you knew that the US was polluting their own clean water?
3.)How do you think this will affect us later in the future?
4.)What are ways to stop so much pollution getting into the groundwater?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxQ-R8SowSA
ReplyDeleteI found this view on YouTube to expand on your article. In the beginning of the video it gives facts and statistics about groundwater contamination. Toward the end there is a funny skit about what could happen if you drink contaminated groundwater. I believe that this would add to someone's knowledge on this topic.
I do believe that more should be done to keep people from depositing chemicals into the ground. Some of the water we drink come from the ground so obviously if people are polluting the ground water they are polluting the water we drink. In some places and under certain circumstances I believe that there should be a ban on pesticides and other harmful chemicals but at the same time those chemicals are essential for the farming industry to profit. The people who are polluting our ground water should have most of the responsibility to cleaning it up. I do not believe that the everyday people should have to pay for removing the chemicals from the ground water. We did not put them there nor do we even want them there. The people who are polluting should have to pay a fine to clean the water.
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