Previous writing assignment done for a class

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brooke Toth

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water pollution is an understated issue when discussing health consequences. Many have disregarded it because of the magnitude of its severity. People do not want to accept that things must change when they do not see the relevance in the changes. While many disregard a missing hair tie or ignore the warnings on products like sunscreen, people, including the government, tend to ignore corporation’s impactful polluting. (Kluger, 2018, p1) Water pollution leads to many health consequences and problems in water quality, but heavy industry has made it significantly worse and almost unbearable. Members of the public and large corporations cause water pollution that is consequential to human health. Over the past several decades, water pollution has run rapid due to heavy industry and the spread of misinformation leading to unintended health consequences led on by the public themselves.

Industrial pollution is a big problem. Companies do not mind needlessly dumping chemicals in freshwater sources. This continues to be an issue towards the surrounding wildlife and indigenous communities that do not have proper access to proper water treatment. It inhibits people's ability to safely consume food they gather from affected areas such as fish. The Hudson River, located in New York State, is a perfect example of ignorance towards pollution brought by heavy industry. This river is so disturbingly polluted that during the many studies done on the river, have shown large amounts of Polychlorinated Biphenyls. (Belton, 2010, p2) When the United States started to become heavily industrialized, many power plants were placed along the river. The polychlorinated biphenyls had come from coolants, and materials like electrical capacitors, which store power. Rainfall is a large contributor to the spread of these carcinogens, spreading anything spilled on the ground into the nearby rivers. (EPA,2004, pg42). Polychlorinated Biphenyls are manmade chemicals that “have been shown to cause cancer in animals as well as a number of serious non-cancer health effects. (EPA,2015,p1)” Further studies into this have shown that while information has been limited due to the complexity of it, infants who have ingested contaminated breast milk have been shown to have delays in cognitive development and lower birth weights.  An additional environmental concern regarding water pollution is hydraulic fracturing, typically known as fracking. It is the practice of collecting gasoline using a method where a rock is fractured, allowing the gasoline to flow to the surface. Fracking fluid is a pollutant that comes with this practice, which is water mixed with several different sediments. The fluid is highly toxic and can even be radioactive. Over the past decade, there have been numerous spills of this toxic substance on people’s property, specifically on the east coast of the United States. There have also been several spills impacting ground water such as one in North Dakota where casing transporting the fluids, burst which released fluids possibly impacting a water aquifer. In Ohio, an incident was confirmed to have led gas into several water aquifers. (EPA, 2015, p16) These spills can lead to terrible health consequences including “an increased risk of neurological and respiratory effects, blood disorders, and adverse developmental outcomes.”(Bolden, 2018, p1) It goes on to suggest that birth defects and increased risks of cancer are linked to this fracking liquid. Many of the people whose property has been a victim of poor disposal of the fracking liquid have been found to have an increase in heart and respiratory conditions. While there are regulations in place that should be controlling the disposal of these liquids, it is difficult to control it. The minimum disposal is storing these liquids in a Class 2 injection wells. These wells, “when used for production are not regulated, (EPA,2019,p1)” whereas wells with diesel chemicals are required to have permit and undergo inspections every 5 years (Watershed Council, N.D, p1).

 

While industrial water pollution is a large issue that must be further addressed, pollution caused by the public can be disastrous. One would assume that when they go to bury their loved one or simply go to the washroom, that they were not going to be contributing to a global issue. According to the United Nations, The Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization, only “80% of wastewater is released to the environment without adequate treatment” (UNESCO,2017, pg2) Wastewater is everything that comes from household drains, so, cleaning chemicals, bodily fluids, and soaps are all things that could be entering back into the environment. Unintentionally, people are trusting their municipal governments to properly dispose of their wastewater which is inadvertently negatively impacting both the environment and health of wildlife and humans. An unexpected industry to cause heavy pollution is the funeral industry. Who would have thought that burying their loved one might put such a strain on the environment. In today's time, formaldehyde is often used as the go to chemical for embalming fluid, but arsenic was used up to the 1900s. Arsenic is a fairly toxic chemical but with the expansion of the funeral industry and after the banning of arsenic, they needed something different. Of course, then, there was not enough research into the toxicity of formaldehyde until the 21st century. In the past few decades, formaldehyde has become known as a human carcinogen. Similarly, to polychlorinated biphenyls, it heavily increases the risk of most cancers. Typically, when finished with the chemicals, many of the embalming fluids will end up in the grey water of funeral homes, and as discussed previously, copious amounts of wastewater are rereleased into the environment. One study suggests that “funeral homes can adequately handle the relatively small volume of diluted embalming fluid and blood” (Chiappelli, 2008, p25), though there is an additional concern regarding these embalming chemicals. Similarly to how gasoline or additional pollutants found on the ground leach into the groundwater, embalming fluids do the same thing. Julie Wetherington Rice argues that “Formaldehyde is going to show up, but it's going to take a while” (Chiappeli, 2008, pg27) However, the article contradicts itself by saying that “an Ohio cemetery found dramatic levels of arsenic and other heavy metals associated with embalming.” People clearly ignore their concerns in order to feel comfortable, but the reality is, the consequences of dumping wastewater back into waterways and using dangerous chemicals that will go back into the earth are going to have terrible consequences in the future. Unfortunately, regulations are inapparent for this because of how difficult it is to control.

Viruses are an unfortunate side effect to water pollution. Industrial pollution, while dangerous, is not overly complex in terms of solutions. Biological pollution is much more difficult, especially when having to be concerned about the viruses that may stem from it. Biological pollution includes feces, both from domestic and wild animals. During a country fair in Olmstead, Ohio, there was several complaints of the water tasting like chlorine. With a deeper inspection in the pipes pumping the water, some of the pipes were found in stagnant water, and swabs of some showed coliform bacteria. Coliform bacteria is found in digestive tracks which indicates traces of animal feces in the pipes. Coliform bacteria is known to cause E coli. A usually mild virus with stomach pains and diarrhea but there are several different variants that can cause severe illness such as “urinary tract infections, respiratory illness and pneumonia. (EPA, ND, p1)” Like industrial pollution, poorly cleaned biological pollution will often be washed away into bodies of water. While it is impossible avoid biological pollution, domestic animals, like dogs and cats tend to spread it more. Zoonotic diseases tend to spread more when people improperly tidy their animals' feces. Additionally, improperly installed sewage lines further increases the risk of coliform bacteria because of heavy rainfall. This adds to the risk of parasitic infections. The overflow often leads to improper treatment of water. All of this fecal pollution not only endangers children, but also the native wildlife, increasing their death rates.

Over the past several decades, water pollution has run rapid due to heavy industry and misinformation from average people, leading to unintended health consequences lead on by the public themselves. Because of the ignorance of heavy industries in the United States, water pollution has worsened, and the quantity of human carcinogens has greatly increased. It has become quite apparent how little many care for the environment. While fracking is known to be bad for the environment it is still happening throughout North America. No proper accountability is being held for the biohazards being spilled onto people's land, even when health consequences are very evident. Lack of accountability is not due to ignorance of what is happening, which is evident of the Enviornmental Protection Agencies record. Given how expensive solutions are to these issues and how slow the consequences take to happen, it is doubtful that there will be many changes over the coming years with these issues. This is especially likely because of how fast paced many of the other issues society faces progress such as pandemics. It gets pushed to the side because of more overwhelming issues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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