Water Pollution

2 Pages 492 Words

Water pollution has been a problem for a very long time. There are many different kinds of water pollution. Water pollution causes many problems with the living plants and animals in the water. Water has always been used to carry away unwanted trash. Since the beginning of civilization people have used our waters to dump their trash in. Rivers, streams, canals, lakes, and oceans are currently used as receptacles for every imaginable kind of pollution. Lakes are especially polluted because they cannot cleanse themselves as rapidly as rivers or oceans. Materials that decay over a short period of time are called, biodegradable materials. Biodegradable materials are less of a long-term threat to the enviroment than materials like metals, plastics, and some chlorinated hydrocarbons, but can still damage a water supply for long periods of time. Metals, plastics, and some chlorinated hydrocarbons remain in the water and can make it poisonous for most forms of life. These materials are not biodegrable, which means that they are a greater risk to the enviroment. There are many different kinds of water pollution. A common kind of water pollution is the effect caused by heavy concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorous, which are used by plants for growth. In large amounts nirogen and phosphorus cause tiny water algae to boom, or grow rapidly. When the algae die, oxygen is needed to decompose them. Which then creates an oxygen definiency in the water, which causes the death of many animals. These events speed up the process of the aging and evental drying up of a lake. Another way water is polluted is by sedimentation, which is the result of poor soil conservation practices. Sediment fills water-supply reservoirs and cloggs power turbines and irrigation pumps. It also diminishes the amount of sunlight that can penetrate the water. The silting of streams is another kind of water pollution. A heavy load of silt kills fish indirectly by reducing the a...