According to the American College Dictionary, pollution is defined as: ?to make foul or unclean; dirty.?
Water pollution occurs when a body of water is adversely affected due to the addition of large amounts of materials to the water. When it is unfit for its intended use, water is considered polluted. Two types of water pollutants exist; point source and non-point source. Point sources of pollution occur when harmful substances are emitted directly into a body of water. The Exxon Valdez oil spill best illustrates a point source water pollution.
A non-point source delivers pollutants indirectly through environmental changes. An example of this type of water pollution is when fertilizer from a field is carried into a stream by rain, in the form of run-off which in turn effects aquatic life.
The technology exists for point sources of pollution to be monitored and regulated, although political factors may complicate matters. Nonpoint sources are much more difficult to control. Pollution arising from non-point sources accounts for a majority of the contaminants in streams and lakes.
The sad part is that the Clean Water Act was never implemented as intended and promised, directly due to an incorrect applied water pollution test, EPA used to implement the Act. The result is that EPA ignored nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste and thus still allows rivers to be used as giant urinals. Two other consequences are that one can not evaluate the real performance of a sewage treatment plant and what their effluent waste loadings are on receiving water bodies.
ReplyDeleteAlthough EPA acknowledged the problems with this test in 1984, in stead of correcting the test allowed an alternative test, that now officially ignored the pollution caused by nitrogenous waste, while this waste, like fecal waste, exerts and oxygen demand and is a nutrient (fertilizer) for algae and aquatic plants, now considered by EPA the largest form of pollution in our open waters, causing eutrophication and eventually dead zones.
Due to a worldwide incorrect applied pollution test, the CWA, the second largest federally funded public works program, failed and it still appears to be impossible to correct this test and implement the CWA as intended and promised to the American public.