You may not be aware of it, but water from rain and melting snow are causes of water pollution. Known as “polluted run-offs” simply because water poured down from skies have no other places to go to but the streams, rivers, estuaries, lakes, and other bodies of water. As they pass onto land, run-off water carries different wastes that man has carelessly disposed of on the ground.
Remember that most of our grounds are now concrete or cemented; hence rain water or water from melting snow hardly seeps in but instead runs-off onto canals, rivers, estuaries, streams and others. We use pesticides, oil, detergent soap and other cleaning materials in considerable quantities and studies show that they eventually get carried off into bodies of natural water.
In agricultural sites, the use of pesticides and fertilizers has caused considerable amount of pollution in nearby rivers. How farm run-offs has effected the environment was disclosed when a vast area in the Gulf of Mexico was declared as a “dead zone”. These areas became “dead zones” which smothers marine life due to the accumulation of algae formed from run-off wastes. Excessive algae resulted to low levels of oxygen in these parts of the water.
Studies made by some university students show that for the past 50 years, farms have been pumping into rivers and streams, their wastes and excessive fertilizers, which contained substantial amounts of carbon dioxide.
The U.S. Geological Survey report has linked the states of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee as responsible for this farm run-off pollution. Hence, the Mississippi has high levels of acidity due to the carbon dioxide contributed by these farm run-offs. As a result, it has disrupted the marine life and coral growth in the nearby ocean. Thus, the current state of water pollution has reached a considerable degree of contamination.
A recent publication from the University of California has drawn our attention about stunted growth and deformities among baby fish or fingerlings found in the San Francisco estuary. Evidences show that the striped bass showed apparent signs of abnormalities as early as its development stage in the reproductive system of the fish mother. The developing larvae is described as having an uncharacteristic accumulation of fluid with yellowed areas indicating blistered and dead tissues and an unusual curvature of the spinal cord.
The current reports therefore about stunted growth and deformities in baby fish or fingerlings are mere indicators that San Francisco’s estuary waters still possess high levels of water pollution. The San Francisco Bay area is unique in the sense that the relatively high input of pollution dates back to the 1884 California Gold Rush. San Francisco, known for its “Golden Gate” title, is also known as the “Silver Estuary” since its level of silver sediment concentration is the highest in all estuarine systems.
The high level of mercury pollution is a legacy from the waste inputs of mercury mining districts that existed during Gold Rush era one and a half centuries ago. These factors compounded by the modernization of California wherein high level of copper contamination and other pollutants showed in its recent studies. Hence, the San Francisco estuary is more polluted than ever.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached levels to create too much acidification even in the ocean. Atmospheric precipitation is bringing down too much carbon dioxide from the air to sea; hence, too much carbon dioxide is dissolving in bodies of water. The changes in the ocean’s chemistry have made an impact on coral reefs which other marine life subsists on for food and shelter.
Although corals flourish in warm waters, extreme thermal heat is another matter. The ocean has become too acidic and too warm for corals to survive. Heat and acidity has lessened the presence of algae that corals need for some nutrition, hence the lack of algae has resulted into bleached and less healthy corals.
Scientists foresee total water contamination in the future, which will lead to food production problems both in the agricultural and industrial sectors. Too much waste has polluted our waters dating back from more than a century ago. We throw away our wastes with little care as to where they will go, in the end they will all come back to us in the form of ill effects brought by pollution.