I chose to watch the Frontline episode on “Poisoned Waters”. This documentary showed the environmental issues involving case studies on the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound. By examining how these rising pollutants along with industrial contaminants like PCB, lead, mercury and agricultural pollution. America has kept from making many of the nation’s waterways fishable and swim able again. This was a goal set by Congress nearly four decades ago.
The Chesapeake Bay is polluted with agricultural waste. We see things like 1.5 billion pounds of chicken waste that no one wants to take responsibility for. Ignoring standards, a waterway was tested for E. coli; the standard is 125 FCU/100ml of water. Yet this waterway’s level was at 48392 FCU/100ml. An industry that will go to great lengths to make sure that Congress doesn’t impose sanction against them.
Congress enacted legislation now known as the Clean Water Act. During the Truman era, originally called the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The bill Congress passed in 1972 was an overhaul of the original act. The Clean Water Act set limits on the amount of pollutants industries and cities could discharge and gave the Environmental Protection Agency the power to sue and penalize polluters that exceeded those limits. Congress banned DDT, reduced emissions and sued major cities.
When Regan became president, his administration established a program of voluntary compliance with Clean Water Act standards. Regan sent around memos to big business asking, “What regulation do you want relief from?” Nixon wasn’t much better. He was out of step with the country. Nixon may have given the EPA the authority to sue and penalize polluters that exceeded those limits, but he would veto any new legislation And we did not care.
Then the documentary tackles Puget Sound. The Duwamish River is the largest hot spot in the nation. In 2001, the Duwamish River was classified as a “Super Fund” site. This is given to a site that will receive federal assistance for clean up. But yet, it may be too late. Puget Sound in contaminated with PCP, lead and mercury. The threat comes from the giant industrial polluters of old and from chemicals in consumers’ face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that find their way into sewers, storm drains, eventually into America’s waterways and drinking water.
The Potomac River smelled so bad that you could go near it.
"Water Pollution." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 5 May 2014.
cut back on the problems in the Bay. Scientists have given an unthinkable amount of attention to the Bay of the past several years and researchers from countless numbers of agencies and institutions have dove deep into the issues and studying every nook and cranny to create answers to every politicians’ questions. The biggest concern with the Bay, and the most concentrated ...
that we have to start watching where we drain our polluted water, and start to
This is an important topic. It affects the overall health of the population surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, as we eat from it quite often and it can be used as a water source. The chemicals being released into the water are from coal-burning factories and runoff, which can be helped, but it’s almost impractical in this day and age to spend the amount of money required to do so without the technology that can guarantee a fix.
Excessive nutrients from agriculture, development, and industry are harming the Chesapeake Bay. These excessive nutrients harm the habitat for many of the bays species. On top of the habitat being depleated, overfishing and diseases are also hurting the bays species. Nutrient loads can be reduced with the help of lawmakers to put a cap on the emissions allowed in the environment. If this is done the dead zone will start to recede, but the time and money need to be spent in order to save the bay.
---. “The Clean Water Act—Is it Successfully Reducing Water Pollution?- Final Draft.” UTSA: WRC 1023, 11 Apr 2014. Print.
Toxic substances and Areas of concern: includes pollution prevention, clean up of the most polluted areas in the Great Lakes. Although many so...
One of the major problems affecting, not only oceans around the world, but also many local bodies of water right now is the problem of ocean acidification. You may have heard of ocean acidification, which you may have just disregarded as a problem that affects the large oceans as a whole. However, this acidification also affects the Chesapeake Bay itself. I have come to realize that the acidification of the Chesapeake is a major problem that will affect the diverse ecosystem that all the wildlife is located in, but also the many businesses locally and throughout the state that depend on the health of the ocean and the wildlife located in the
... needs to be placed on research efforts to reduce the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the environment. Aquatic habitats such as the Great Lakes are almost always at the disadvantaged end because that is where effluent ends up. The basis of current regulations is the effect of said chemicals on human health and other public health threats as opposed to the environment. But as the Alliance for the Great Lakes reports, legislation by the concerned government agencies [U.S. EPA] is changing to include pharmaceuticals in pollutant regulation (15). Advocacy and community initiatives such as the Indiana-Illinois Sea Grant Community Project if continued will be pivotal in educating the public about the need to preserve or responsibly exploit our precious resources. Our motivation ought to be one of altruism: To protect our environment for the benefit of future generations.
To exemplify the ever increasing degree of pollution, I will be focusing on the Santa Monica Restoration Project. This project is an ongoing effort to maintain a clean and healthy environment in and surrounding the Santa Monica Bay so that plant and animal life are able to thrive. Unfortunately this project is continuously challenged by numerous pollutants. Pollution is a simplified way of classifying a multitude of harmful acts and elements. The Santa Monica Bay experiences pollution created by auto and homeowners, oil spills and leaks, gasoline and paint contamination from boats, wastewater from two local sewage treatment plants, litter and construction sediment. The goal of the restoration project is double fold. Number one, to clean up the bay in order to bring back plant and animal life that has either died or fled to other habitats, and two to make the individuals and companies who cause the contamination aware of the harmful acts they are engaging in daily.
Prevention is necessary to control many problems in the Chesapeake Bay. Prevention can range from something as big as a government issue or as small as a single person helping out. The greatest chance at total protection for water quality is when many people and organizations work together to prevent problems. According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, “Federal, state and non-profit Bay Program partners are working with farmers, developers, homeowners and local governments to reduce pollutants from multiple sources and restore water quality for all to enjoy” (Chesapeake Bay Program).
Environmental problems happen everywhere around the world. Something similar happened in the Gray Area. The Gray Area is a region that is surrounded by mountains and rivers. The Missterssipi river, the Rafta river, and the Fo river are the rivers that currently exist in the Gray Area. These three rivers flow down and congregate to the Gray Bay. There are many tourist attractions in the Gray Area like, the golf course. Recently, fish have been dying and have been washing on to the shores of the Gray Bay. Dying fish is bad for many environmental reasons. Dead fish is unpleasant and it has a bad smell, which is what tourists don’t want to see or smell. Elmo Skeeto, Sandy Trapp and Avery Wun are responsible for the dying fish.
In an effort to improve the lives of Americans, the United States Congress has enacted several legislative acts to reduce environmental pollutants. The motivation to take serious environmentally protective public policies came after 1948 when thick heavy smog covered the streets of Donora, Pennsylvania. The incident resulted in the death of 20 people with thousands more falling ill from the respiratory effects of the smog which carried yet unknown environmentally hazardous air pollutants from two factories in the city. This tragedy made the United States government aware that they needed to be concern about air pollution, and before the United Sates Congress passed the Clean Air Act, as we know it today, there were two previous acts that began to shape what now is a truly comprehensible Clean Air Act.
There are 80 countries that have been suffering from a lack of clean water, and two billion people lack access to freshwater, especially South Africa (Alois). This area of countries is the driest in the world - Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt and so on. Like in the book A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, Nya, who lives in Sudan, has been lacking clean water. She has to find water every day for her family. Luckily, Nya got help from Salva who used to live in Sudan and came back from America to build the water system for her village. However, there are still many people around the world that have been suffering to find clean water for basic use. There are many factors that cause a lack of clean water around the world: geography of countries, deforestation,
In 1974 Congress enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act. It set up government oversight, through the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, of surface and ground-water sources. “The EPA set up two types of regulations: (1) mandatory, enforceable maximum contaminant levels (MCLs), to be set as close to the recommended health-based goals and (2) non-mandatory, health-based maximum contaminant level goals (MCLGs).” The chemicals and contaminants to be regulated were: microbiological contaminants, metals and inorganic chemicals, volatile organic chemicals, organic compounds, and radionuclides.