Introduction I. Attention getter: When was the last time you drank a glass of water and almost died due to cholera or dysentery? A. If you live in a developed country with an effective water treatment plant nearby, the answer is never. B. Clean running water is readily available where you live. II. Reason to listen: A. Everyone deserves to have access to clean water. B. At the very least, if you vacation anywhere in LAC, you’ll be able to trust the water. III. Preview statement: The problems facing Latin America’s and the Caribbean’s water purification systems are rooted in their political structures. However, desalination is a technique that, coupled with progressive government action, can increase the clean water supply in LAC. Transition: …show more content…
According to “Desalination and Energy,” there are two popular methods to reduce the salinity in water, but the most commonly used process in LAC is reverse osmosis. A. Basically, feedwater is pushed through a semi-permeable membrane. B. The reject water is removed to keep the energy requirement low; no heating performed. C. There are four stages: pretreatment, pressurization, separation, and stabilization. Transition: Yet, if water desalination seems to be so straightforward, why isn’t it more wildly used? II. Well, while LAC have “smaller” water treatment plants, government action is preventing full, efficient, and ethical use of their natural water supplies. A. Josefina Maestu, a coordinator for the UN-Water Programme, says that although “most governments have made progress with water sector reforms,” the actual process of implementing policies and regulations is slow at best. B. Political fragmentation between sectors prevents policies from being quickly executed. 1. “Water and Green Economy” states that environmental preservation policies often butt heads with the wants of big business. 2. Supply and demand policies are poorly coordinated. C. Lack of large water treatment plans causes severe pollution. 1. Untreated wastewater is dumped into
What we gained from this research was not a thorough understanding of the legislative measures that governments are taking to provide water to the citizens within their borders. Rather, we learned the general lesson that governments, regardless of their resources or political structure, are not the most reliable or capable entities to provide for human beings
Moving on, there are some issues with the legislation that has been passed in order to conserve the water, especially concerning the Clean Water Act. People are having opposition with the rules of the Clean Water Act. Small business owners feel that this act is restricting the way that they tend to their property. For example, several farmers use pesticides, herbicides, and other fertilizers to keep harmful insects and other animals off of their crops, so they can grow properly. These pesticides eventually end up in our local rivers, lakes, and oceans which are making humans and animals very ill. However, they make money by the crops they sell, and to them, the Clean Water Act has a very negative economic impact on them (Landers). Although
Specific Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to provide a persuasive speech on the issue of water pollution and inaccessibility to clean water in third world countries and offer some plausible solutions. The three solutions are filtration systems, chlorination, and collection grids.
With the Pacific Ocean lining the California coast line some may ask why can’t sea water be filtered and used as a source of free water. This is actually an alternative that has been researched and even put into use in places such as the Netherlands, Aruba, the Middle East and even right here in the U.S. This process is called desalinating seawater. Saltwater in its pure form cannot be used for drinking water and is deadly to plants, however if it goes through the process of desalinating it can be used. With California desperate for water Carlsbad, California decided to construct a desalinating plant. An article on NBCNEWS website states that the plant can produce “50 million gallons of freshwater a day from the sea and pour it into a water system that serves 3.1 million people”
Thanks to the United Nations general assembly recognizing the need for clean water in Resolution 64/292, the states and international organizations have been called on to provide funding and resources to help developing countries provide safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water to all. This is a step in the right direction, seeing as women and children in some countries have to walk more than 30 minutes to collect water- if there is any water to collect at all.
There is a water crisis which faces many parts of the world and it is a threat to survival of human beings since humans are primarily dependent on water. Shortage in drinking water is beginning to show its effects in first world countries, but is a current major problem facing lesser developed countries which have not taken drastic steps to harvest water and purify it to make it safe for human consumption. In developed countries the population growth has strained available water resources and stretched the ability of governments and private firms to provide safe drinking water to the vast majority of the population. Seventy one percent of
The California water drought has been declared a crisis by the governor of California. 2013 was the driest year on record, and California could be running out of water. Californians should be water wise, and their use, or no use, of water will have an enormous impact on this drought. They can use the techniques published in a recent Time article called, 5 Ways to Bust California’s Drought, to reduce their water use. Landscape techniques, alternate water sources, and the personal conservation of water can reduce the use of water, and can have a positive change on this water crisis.
Since the discovery that desalination could provide humans in California with clean potable water from the ocean could be very effective, it
Desalination is basically the procedure of separating excess sodium chloride, minerals and impurities from sea and ocean water to make it usable for irrigation and human consumption. It has been touted to rid the world of its current water problems for nearly 5 decades now, during this period huge strides have been made in the desalination technology. These advances have made it possible to venture into desalination as the long term option to the water problem in many parts of the world. It is seen as long term since the ocean is not going anywhere anytime soon as compared to lakes and rivers that have been going dry seasonally. The state of California is not new to the water shortage problem; as stated above tit has been a witness to previous droughts. It is therefore time to consider a long term solution to this problem.
With the water crisis being seen around the world, even right here in the United States, we need to explore other options to supply fresh water to the residents. One State, in particular, that raises concern is the state of California. An alternative method to supply water to residents could be the process of desalination. Desalination is when fresh water is made by using either seawater or brackish and eliminating the minerals and salts as a way to make the water safe for human and agriculture uses ( Kesieme et al., 2013). In recent years, we have seen an increase the in the number of desalination plants around the United States (fig 1). However, is the process of desalination the answer for the water crisis going on in California? As a
Today, desalination is a common process that's used in seaside cities and towns worldwide. There are more than 15,000 desalination plants around the world providing freshwater from salt and brackish water alike (Planet Green 2011). This number continues to grow as researchers work to improve the process, both in terms of cost effectiveness and energy efficiency (DSE 2011). But countries such as Australia, Israel and even the United States are continually adding desalination plants of various sorts into their water-management portfolios. The facilities are common in North Africa and the Mideast, where freshwater is scarce (Chandler 2008).
A desalination plant is a possible alternative to California’s need of consumable water. There is a course cons against desalination mainly affecting the marine environment for leaving highly concentrated saline water behind through the process but we should not fear it as it is a long term solution we cannot toss aside. Kerry Cavanaugh from Los Angeles Times mentions, “2,000 an acre foot, compared to about $1,000 an acre foot for imported water” (par. 3). This means that production of water through this process is cost efficient and seems rather illogical to spend more money into producing water; instead of importing it from another major source. The process cost is not a major step forward, but the idea of reaching out to import water is rather absurd. California is an arid state; we are the ones responsible for turning it into a paradise. In order to maintain it that way a method to lower the cost of desalination can be propose as solution. The thought
The Pure Water project, a project that plans to construct three recycling plants to produce San Diego’s water supply, only requires $3.5 billion to get started – inexpensive in comparison to the amount of money it takes to import, partially purify, and desalinate water. An example of the ever-growing expense of imported water can be found in the article “Council unanimously approves purifying sewage into drinking water”, which was published to UT San Diego on November 18, 2014. In this informational article, author David Garrick states, “Councilman Scott Sherman said San Diego must fight back against sharply rising costs of imported water.” Potable water is the best way to combat the increasing prices of imported water. Rather than relying on water from the Colorado River – San Diego’s main supplier – existing water can be purified and reused. In the same article, it is also stated that, “In addition, recycling wastewater… would allow the city to avoid spending about $2.1 billion in upgrades needed at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant” (Garrick). As mentioned in the quotation, San Diego is already spending generous amounts of money on water. This can be remedied, however, with the implication of potable water, which costs significantly less. Another one of San Diego’s pricey water sources is desalination. Desalination is the high cost, high energy process of purifying salt water to make it drinkable. In the nonfiction article “OC Coastkeeper: San Diego Swindled By Desalination, Don’t Let OC Be Next”, published on February 3, 2016 to voiceofoc.org by author Ray Hiemstra, it is stated that, “San Diego is forced to pay for the most expensive water on the market whether they need it or not”, in reference to the desalination plant managed by
Desalination is one of the more popular options being considered to attempt to terminate the drought. Desalination is a process through which salt water is pumped from the ocean in to a treatment facility, and then the salt is extracted to make it possible to be used domestically. This is a long drawn out process, which involves seven different steps. The steps of desalination include the
Life springs up around water sources. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest civilizations have been build need fertile bodies of water. Known life relies on water to sustain that life. So it is no surprise when a debate arose in 2013 around comments made by Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck regarding privatization of water and the fundamental human right to survive from dehydration and illness from non-portal water consumption. Although the context of Brabeck’s comment was taken out of context, issues surrounding the access companies like Nestlé have been given to bottle their water when people do not have access to clean water and droughts are threatening crop production. Adding a price tag is not the answer. The market, both these companies and their consumers have a major role to play in the management of water; a role that requires a change in mindset of privilege many citizen of the United States, and other countries that do not see the direct effects that serious clean water issue have on people that do not have it.